


the greatest adventure is the family you've searched for coming alive

by ThePackWantstheD



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Billy Hargrove's Self Esteem Issues, Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Child Abuse, Developing Friendships, Found Family, Gay Male Character, Gen, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Platonic Relationships, Season/Series 03 Spoilers, Sibling Bonding, The Upside Down, clone theory, ish, its a rewrite now ladies and gentlemen, season 2 divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-07-11 13:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19928761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: Billy spends a night fighting monsters with a crowbar in his hand after Harrington knocks him into the Byers' fridge.In the aftermath, he and Max call a ceasefire.or: Billy Hargrove gets the family he deserves in the form of three children taking up the seats of the camaro, in the form of Billy teaching Max that she can be as badass as she wants without being less of a girl because Billy taking care of himself doesn't make him less of a man, in the form of the blood and bruises and broken bones that Eleven and Billy share, in the form of Will Byers learning that he's not the only boy in Hawkins who wants to kiss other boys.





	1. an intricate tangle of love and beauty and resentment

**_one by one we will call for a ceasefire_ **

Billy sat at the dining room table in the Hargrove house, leaning against the back of his chair with his arms crossed over his chest.

Max sat across from him in a similar position, her lips pressed into a firm straight line and her arms over her chest.

It was the first time since everything had happened - since she had snuck out with Sinclair, since he had laid Harrington out for hiding her from him, since Harrington had knocked him against the Byers' fridge and that monster stored in the freezer had tumbled out at Billy's feet, since Billy had spent the night using a crowbar to fight monsters with Harrington and a bunch of thirteen year olds while his mind screeched ' _what the fuck_ ' - that the two of them had been alone.

Neil and Susan had gone out for dinner, though not before Neil had made sure Billy knew what would happen if he found out Max had snuck out again while Billy was supposed to be watching her. Usually Billy would have said something, but he was still dealing with the bruises from his fight with Harrington as well as the beating he'd taken from Neil when he'd finally returned home with Max. He couldn't take much else without ending up in the hospital, trying to come up with a story to fend off the questions of the nurses who had seen him a few too many times, a little too often.

Silence stretched between the two of them.

Billy thought, just for a moment, about reading stories last year on the demilitarization zone they had set up on the Korean peninsula.

It was a ridiculous enough thought that it had him pushing himself forward.

"Alright kid," Billy said. He put his hands on the table, spreading his fingers out. "Let's talk."

"About what? You saw what's happening. I can't just leave my friends in danger."

"You absolutely can." Max's face hardened. Billy forced himself to take a deep breath, trying not to grow angry with her. He felt like he had been angry since the very moment they had left Santa Monica's city limits and he was growing tired of it. "Okay, you want to help your friends. Fine. Whatever. But you can't just run off like you did before."

"What else was I supposed to do?" Max asked. "Ask you for a ride? You wouldn't have taken me."

He wouldn't have - because he was getting ready for his date, because he'd already warned her not to hang out with Sinclair, because Neil might not have been as angry if he'd at least known where Max was but he still wouldn't have been pleased at Billy having just dropped her off at someone's house.

"Okay. Then next time you ask me for a ride to hang out with your friends, I'll try not to be such an asshole about it. In exchange, you have to stop sneaking out," Billy said. He could see Max tensing up, like she didn't quite believe the words coming out of his mouth. Billy didn't really give a shit about what she thought - just knew that he was sick of his dad kicking the shit out of him and he's doubly sick of getting the shit kicked out of him because of this kid. "That's the deal kid. I'll drive you around as long as you stop fucking disappearing on me, you got it?"

Max watched him suspiciously before saying, "That's all?"

"Nope," Billy said. "But that's part one of this peace treaty. You want rides than you tell me where you are."

Max was quiet for a moment, considering him.

Then she leaned forward, suspicion giving way to seriousness.

Billy found himself grinning as she did. For all that Max seemed to be unable to put together what the constant bruises on Billy's skin meant or what her role in them was, she wasn't a stupid kid.

The look on her face meant they were in business.

****

**_sisters made of sugar spice everything nice_ **

Billy was sitting on his bed flipping idlely through his physics textbook and wondering if Hawkins had updated their shit in the last century given how old it seemed when his bedroom door slammed open.

His heart jumped into his throat as he whipped around, already running through what he had done that day and what might have set his father off enough for him to bother Billy. Usually Neil waited for Billy to come out of his bedroom to get at him, but it wasn't completely unprecedented for Billy to be barraged in on either. After all, it was a moment like that which had led to them leaving California - Billy's wrist wrapped in a black cast and Neil muttering about California faggots.

It wasn't his father that he found in his doorway, though.

"Billy! Can you take me to the mall?" Max said.

Heart beating hard in his chest, Billy was tempted to tell her to go fuck herself.

But their peace treaty was new, just shy of two weeks old, and he didn't feel like rocking the boat already. Not when he was finally starting to feel truly normal again after the beating Neil had given him for her going missing.

Tossing his textbooks aside and shifting to climb out of bed, he asked, "Why?"

"Mom said that since we don't have money for a new dress, I could get earrings for the Snow Ball."

Billy had been looking around the floor for something to wear - he liked to look nice, but he didn't think he needed anything more than a tee-shirt and his jacket for a trip to the mall. It wasn't like he was going to get to the opportunity talk to anyone, not when Max would end up telling someone about how he had ditched her. "Really? You don't even wear the ones you have."

Max's face flushed. Her arms came up over her chest, crossing defensively.

 _Ah_ , Billy thought as he took in her embarrassment, _this was about Sinclair_.

He still didn't want her hanging around the kid, not when anyone in town could tell Neil about who they'd seen Max with and Billy would end up getting blamed for letting her hangout with a black boy as if it was his job to vet her friend's rather than Neil's or Susan's, but he'd agreed when they'd called their ceasefire that he'd leave her friends out of their shit.

"Whatever," he muttered, turning away from her. "Get out of my room so I can get dressed. I'll take you when I'm ready."

He heard her groaning as bent down to grab the white shirt laying on his floor and brought it to his nose. He'd been at a party the night before, but as far as he could tell it didn't smell like weed or alcohol. "You take like thirty minutes to get ready, Billy!"

"Then you better scram now, huh?" he said. "You hanging around is only going to make me take longer."

* * *

Billy was looking at a display of dangling black, silver, and gold earrings, debating whether or not to buy himself a new one, when he saw Max approaching him out of the corner of his eye. She'd been looking at a section a little ways away from him, a column filled with the colorful studs that her mother always bought for her. 

"You find what you wanted?" he asked, looking over at her. 

"No." There was something disgruntled in her eyes, an unhappy and frustrated downturn to her lips. "Their all too girly."

"Sucks." Billy hummed a bit, looking away from her to examine the ones he was considering. The fact that they had come to get her something that she hadn't found didn't mean that he couldn't get what he wanted. He was trying to decide between two designs - one was like a diamond with a small circular disk between the two spikes while the other was a small golden cross. He took another moment to look at them before reaching out for the diamond. He turned away from the shelf afterwards, looking down at Max against. "Alright, you ready to go then?"

Max was quiet for a moment, staring at the shelf Billy had just grabbed his earrings from. 

He was about to ask her again if she was read to go when she turned her gaze up at him, saying, "I want earrings like yours."

Billy quirked an eyebrow. "You sure? This isn't really your style."

"Why?" Max said. She crossed her arms over her chest, something defensive in her stance. "Because I'm a girl?"

"No." Billy could practically hear Neil's words behind her own - all of the times he had told Billy to stop acting like a girl when he took too long getting ready, the way he had called Billy a pussy when he'd first seen his pierced ear, the way he sneered that Billy had better stop dressing like a faggot and start dressing like a man. Neil encouraged the fire in Max, but only so far. She might not have gotten called any of the names Billy did, but he always frowned when she didn't like the pretty dresses Susan bought her or when she came home with knees just a little too dirty from playing with the boys. "Because you rarely wear earrings and you've never worn anything other than studs." When she just continued to stare at him, defensive and disbelieving, Billy let out a small huff. "I really don't give two shits what you wear or do, Max. You say you're a girl? Then you're girl. And that doesn't change just because you don't like dresses and skirts or because you wear earrings like mine." 

There was another beat before she asked, voice quieter, "Really?"

"Yeah." He shifted out of the way so that he wasn't blocking her from the display. "Go ahead and find a pair you like. Just try not to get anything too big. You aren't used to having something heavy on your ear."

For a moment, her gaze flickered between the him and the display. 

Then her shoulders relaxed just a fraction of an inch. "I don't know what looks nice." She focused her gaze on the display as she asked, "Would you help me pick a pair?"

Billy felt a flash of surprise at the request. 

He twisted the earrings in his hand around in his fingers, considering blowing her off to go pay for them himself. But then he thought about the look in her eyes as she asked if it was because she was a girl, thought about how Neil made him feel for his appearance and how he wouldn't wish that on anyone - much less Max, thought about how she had closed off as though Neil wasn't the only one parroting these things at her.

"Yeah, sure."

It took them a couple of minutes, but in the end they decided on a pair of little black triangles. Max had wanted something similar to the long, thin golden spike that Billy had been wearing the night of his fight with Steve, but Billy had convinced her that something smaller was probably better until she got used to something dangling from her ear like that. 

He had surprised both of them by offering to bring her back in a couple of weeks to get a pair like his if she decided that she wasn't bothered by the dangling. 

He felt a little awkward about the offer after, so he ended up snatching the earrings she picked off the shelf and power walking towards the counter without bothering to see if she was following. 

When they left afterwards, Max walked next to him instead of in front of him like she had a tendency to do any other time they were together. And instead of ignoring him as they left, Max tugged on the sleeve of his jacket and asked if they could get smoothies from the food court. 

And later, when the two of them are walking out of the mall with their smoothies in their hands and Billy is threatening to make Max walk home if she spills her mango shit all over the camaro seats, he wonders just for a moment if maybe she's not as bad as he thought she was. 

_**brothers made of frogs snails and puppy dog tails** _

Max's hand shook as she lowered the brush to her thumb, tongue peeking out from between her lips as she focused.

This was something her mother usually helped her with, putting on some soft music when Billy and Neil were both out of the house and having Max sit on the living room carpet with her crossed legs under the coffee table while her mother dipped the brushes and drew them across Max's nails, but her mom was busier nowadays - with work and Neil and finding footing in their new town - and she had less time to spend alone with her daughter.

Max was trying to be understanding of the whole thing, which was why she was sitting at the kitchen table attempting to paint her own nails for the first time.

Her mom was supposed to help her paint them the previous day in preparation for the Snow Ball, Max didn't paint her nails often so she'd asked her mom to do them early so she'd be sure that she actually liked having them colored, since she'd had time off but Neil had ended up getting home early and her mom hadn't ended up having the time to do them like she'd promised. 

"If you don't get your hands steady, you're going to make a mess." Max jumped at the words, swiping the brush in her panic and ending up leaving a streak of polish across the dining room table. "Jesus christ, Max, really?"

She looked up to find Billy standing in the entry way separating the dining room and kitchen from the rest of the house. He wasn't dressed up for the day, just wearing a pair of loose jeans and a white tank top. There was a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth even though he wasn't supposed to be smoking in the house. 

"You scared me!" she said. Something rose up in her chest, guilt at the mess she had made as well as anger at him for acting as though she'd made a mess on purpose. Billy had been nicer to her recently, taking out less of his anger out on her than he used to, but he never really stopped teasing her and she found it infuriating. "And I haven't done this before! It's hard to keep my hands straight."

He crossed the room, peering down at the table when he drew closer to her. "You've never painted them yourself?"

"No. Mom always helps me."

Billy was quiet for a moment before taking a drag of his cigarette. 

When he was done, he snubbed the bud out in the cigarette tray that Neil kept on the table. As he did, he told her, "Go to the bathroom. Grab some cotton swaps and the nail polish remover."

"Why?" She moved to dip the brush back in the polish bottle so that she could gather more and try to do her thumb again. "I'm doing something."

"All your doing is making a mess, shitbird. Go grab what I told you and I'll do it for you myself."

Max looked up at him, surprised. "You know how to do nails?"

"Mmm. I did it a couple of times back in California." Max thought about their time at home, dragging up memories of Billy holding cigarettes with nails painted jet black when he had just gotten back home from a night out or seeing him duck into the bathroom the morning after a party with colored nails scratching at his stomach. "If you don't do what I told you, I'm not going to help and I'm going to make you scrub the table once you finish."

She thought about it for another second before figuring that Billy couldn't possibly do any worse than she would and pushing her chair back. "Okay! I'm going!"

Max ended up making a second trip to the bathroom immediately after the first, because Billy took one look at her nails once she came back with the remover and decided that she needed a manicure if he was going to do this. 

She couldn't remember a time when she and Billy had touched without it being rough, without him grabbing her or her punching him. 

But he was careful with her that afternoon. He held her hand gently in his own as he clipped her fingernails for her, promising that it wouldn't matter that much when she objected. His grip on her wrist was loose as he showed her how to dip her hands in the large mixing bowl that he'd filled for her to soak her hands in. And when he finally got to covering nails in the dark blue polish she had chosen, his fingers were feather light against her own as he held her and place, working with focused eyes and an unlit cigarette dangling from between his lips. 

When she was sitting at the table afterwards, under strict instructions not to move before they dried because he wasn't going to redo them for her, she watched as he cooked lunch for them. He usually complained about having to do it, but this time he asked her what she wanted and didn't object when she requested something slightly more involved than a can of soup from the shelf. 

And afterwards as the two of them sat at the table eating their grilled cheese in companionable silence, Max wondered if moments like these were why Mike loved his sister despite all of his complaints about her, why Will was always so excited when Jonathan decided to spend some time with him instead of going out with his friends, why Lucas could argue with his sister all day only to puff up the second he heard one of the kids in her class had been mean to her. 

She wondered if moments like this were why her friends liked their older siblings so much, because in a moment like this she didn't really mind that Billy was her big brother. 

**_suck the poison out (and we'll be okay)_ **

****Billy pulled the camaro into the middle school parking lot, letting the wheel slip from between his fingers, with it's engine roaring and Michael Jackson playing just a little too loudly on the stereo.

The drive had been quieter than had become the usual - Max wasn't giving him directions to one of the other brats houses or talking about the plans she had for once he dropped her off or complaining about the music and begging him to let her listen to something else. 

He slid the camaro into park, choosing a space closer to the door than he usually would given the snow covering the ground, and then turned it off. 

"Alright," he told her. "Go to your thing. Dad pushed your curfew back to eleven, right?" Max nodded, looking out the window instead of at him. "Alright. I'll be here at ten-thirty then. You better be out here waiting, because I'm not going in there to find you."

Her voice was quiet as she said, "Okay."

She reached for the door handle, but she didn't pull it or move to get out. 

Billy let her sit for a moment, waiting to see if she was going to grow confident enough to get out of the car without his help.

It was so unlike Max to worry about things like this - about dances and how she looked and whether boys would like her - that something in his chest ached with it. He knew that part of it was just because she had finally grown old enough to notice handsome boys and that she had finally found one specifically that she liked being around, but he also knew that part of it was the way that Neil made her feel terrible for not being girly enough, for not being enough of the little princess he clearly wanted. 

It was the same way that Billy had felt so unsure of himself when he had been her age because of Neil - back when he had been wisp thin instead of sturdy and muscular, back when his hair had first been growing out, back when his face has been too round and his skin too pale even despite the California sun. Of course, Billy's confidence had been dropped in the form of fists against his ribs until he bulked up enough to take them and being called a faggot while Neil used his hair to shove Billy's face into walls rather than the thinly veiled disapproval rather than the snide comments and side long looked that Neil gave Max. 

But this was the thing that Billy had been realizing in the weeks since they had called their ceasefire - that when Max wasn't sneaking around and getting him in trouble, she was a pretty cool kid. She was funny and quick witted when she wanted to be, gave as good as she got until they were both smiling as Billy ruffled her hair or she was punching him in the arm. She wasn't nearly as annoying about him taking her places when he didn't make every request a fight, asked if he was okay with taking her some place before asking Susan and Neil if she could go somewhere and promised to be home by the time he needed to leave if he told her he was planning on going out. He didn't hate spending time her when she was around the house either. He didn't mind the few times they'd sat at the dining room table together, eating ice cream while they each tried to get their homework done before Neil came home. He didn't mind when she flopped down on the couch with him while he was watching a movie, even when his movie finished and she asked him to watch something that she wanted to see with her. He didn't mind the afternoons when he spent a couple of minutes in the arcade with her because she was the first of her friends to arrive and didn't want to be alone. 

This was the thing that Billy had been realizing in the weeks since they had called their ceasefire - that Billy didn't really mind having a sister if Max was the sister in question. 

And Billy wasn't going to just sit here while Neil made his sister hate herself as much as Billy hated himself. 

"You look nice, you know," Billy told her. 

Max's hand tightened around the camaro handle. There was a moment before she said, sounding unsure, "You really think so? Even though I'm not wearing a dress or anything?"

"I'm not really the type to lie to a girl about whether or not she looks good." Billy sort of ached for a cigarette, for anything to keep him busy. "And who cares if you wear a dress not? You don't like dresses, Max. You'd just be uncomfortable and that's not a very attractive look on anyone."

There was a moment before she said, "You think I look nice enough that boys will want to dance with me?"

"I'm pretty sure Sinclair will want to dance with you."

Max's face flushed, but she didn't try to deny that it was his attention she wanted. 

Instead, she finally pulled on the handle and popped the door open. "I'm going now."

"Alright. Ten-thirty, okay?"

"I got it!" She hopped out of the car. For a moment it seemed like she was going to dart away without another word, but instead she poked her head in and said, "Thank you, Billy." She didn't wait for a reply before shutting the door and darting away.

Billy watched until she disappeared into the school's double doors before turning away. 

He was about to reach for his keys to start the car back up when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye - Steve Harrington's BMW parked a few spaces away. It was dark and there was snow making it difficult to see, but Billy was relatively sure he could see Harrington in the car talking to one of Max's friends. 

He stared for a long moment before sighing and dropping his hands away from his keys.

Pulling his jacket tighter around himself, he reached the handle and pushed the car door open. 

He was already getting weirdly emotional with Max - he might as well get the apology he owed Harrington out of the way now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone :) This story is based on [this](https://thepackwantsthed.tumblr.com/post/186313625625/okay-so-i-was-thinking-about-a-stranger-things-s2) post that I made on tumblr. This first chapter focuses on Billy and Max & their relationship while the next ones will develop other relationships. 
> 
> 2) I'm mostly going to tag as I go, but Harringrove is tagged already for the purpose of just letting everyone know that's what this fic is about. 
> 
> 3) I could have wrote Billy discovering everything but that fic exists x1000 times over. I'd read it every time, but it's not what I wanted to read. 
> 
> 4) Story title from Jonas Brothers Kids of the Future. Kind of. I changed the lyrics around a bit. 
> 
> 5) sources for various titles in this chapter: The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, ceasefire by King&Country,


	2. the greatest gift our parents ever gave us was each other

_**the comfort of secret-keepers**_

Billy laid in his bed, his chest radiating the familiar ache of battered ribs and his head pounding. He wasn't entire sure what he had done to get beaten the way he had, but that seemed to be the case more and more nowadays. Billy and Max getting along meant there were less reasons for Neil to get in his face, giving his spiel about respect and responsibility, but it didn't mean less beatings - just that Billy had to be cautious about every aspect of his life now. 

He heard his door creak open and turned his head to see Max peeking into the doorway. 

"Billy?"

Assuming he knew what she would say, he said, "I can't take you anywhere right now."

"I know." Her fingers curled around the door for a moment, Billy was starting to notice that Max only showed this kind of hesitation when she was really nervous and thought he'd tell her no. She asked, voice soft and quiet, "Can I come in?"

Billy considered it for a moment. He was in a lot of pain and just wanted to go to sleep until dinner, hoping that Neil didn't come barging in to tell him how much of a lazy, worthless piece of shit he was. On the other hand, Billy had never particularly liked being alone and he didn't want to ruin the closeness they had been building by pushing her away. 

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "Fine. You can come in."

Given permission to come into his room, all of Max's hesitation seem to melt away. She stepped inside of his room and closed the door behind her - moving carefully, but quickly. 

He didn't really know what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't for her to dart forward and hop into his bed with him. She crawled across it, as though even in her hurry she knew that moving too much would jar him too harshly and make his injuries worse, until she was next to him. Then she tucked herself close up to him, curling towards him with her arms tucked against her chest as she looked up at him. 

She had wiggled so that her head was on his pillow next to his, putting her knees against his thighs. It was a simple touch, but one that Billy struggled not to jerk away from. He couldn't remember the last time that someone had touched him this gently - the last time he'd felt something that wasn't Neil's fist or the elbow of another player on the basketball court. He kept most of his sexual encounters quick and frantic, just the right side of fast and rough, so it wasn't like there was much gentle-ness to those either. 

Maybe it had been back in California - one of his friends brushing against him as they walked along the boardwalk, wobbling in their laughter because they were young and dumb and everything seemed okay as long as Billy wasn't home, or one of the boys he had exchanged kisses with behind the school, the boy backed against the bricks and their fingers twined by their sides and smiles on their lips. Back then Billy had been bruised down to his bones, but he had been home with the sea salt on his lips and the breeze in his hair and peace in his chest despite everything terrible in his world. 

"Are you okay?" Max asked. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft and quiet. 

"It's not the worse I've had," Billy said, because it was the best answer he had for her right now. He shuffled a bit so he could press his foot against hers, pushing at her toes. "You don't have to worry about me, Max. I'll be up and about tomorrow."

There was a moment of silence between them before Max spoke again, her fingers curling tighter and digging into her palms, "I _hate_ him."

"Well then, we can start a club then." This entire thing already felt strange, emotional and soft when most of his new relationship with Max was heated teasing and warm laughter, so Billy found himself saying, "You don't do anything though, do you understand? You don't tell him you feel that way. You don't snap at him. You don't do anything that might make him reach for you instead of me."

Their relationship was heated teasing and warm laughter, but Billy wouldn't hesitate to defend her if Neil raised a hand against her. He didn't care if it was a full blown punch or an open handed slap or just him grabbing her the way Billy once had. 

If Neil put his hand on his sister - Billy was going to show his father exactly what he'd learned of respect and responsibility. 

"I don't want him to hurt you."

"He's already hurt me," Billy said. "Might as well make sure he only breaks one of us."

Max's face scrunched up, furrowed in some mixture of sadness and anger. "You aren't broken, Billy."

"You are probably the only person on the planet who feels that way," Billy said. He reached out, ignoring the way the movement made his shoulder burn, and ruffled her hair. "I appreciate the sentiment though."

The two of them spent the rest of the day lying in Billy's bed. It was a quiet afternoon with the sun shining through Billy's window and down at them, the two of them curled around each other in the warmth and letting soft words cross the space between them. 

They talked about the things that Billy didn't want to tell her, pushed into the discussion by the bruises on Billy's face and Max's curled fingers. They talked about the first time that Neil hit Billy and the way that it had rocked him because eight year old boys weren't built to withstand that kind of force. They talked about all of the things that Billy had become afraid of because Neil's fists and words are enough to make Billy pull away from anything. They talked about all the things that Billy has done to set Neil off - and, when Max pushes because she can see him holding back, about all of the things Max has done which have had Neil hissing about Billy learning respect and responsibility.

It was a heavy discussion that Billy felt like he never should have had with a thirteen year old, but in the aftermath Max pressed even closer to him and promised to do better. And Billy told her that she didn't have anything to be better with, that their deal had already taken a lot of the edge off and that nothing had ever been her fault because nothing she had done had forced Neil to hit his son. 

And in the aftermath Billy thought that maybe this was a conversation they needed to have at some point because if they couldn't talk to each other about the secrets of their household than they're never going to be able to talk to anyone else about it, much less find ways to move past their secrets. 

_**no one who cooks cooks alone** _

"Billy, what do you want for dinner?" Max asked as she peered into the pantry. 

"You aren't making dinner," he told her. He was sitting at the kitchen table, peering down at his calculus book and working on the problem sheet he'd been given. The two of them had been working together on homework, Max usually needed a little help memorizing things for her history classes and Billy was sick of spending all of his time inside his room when Neil wasn't home now that he and Max were getting along. "Grab a snack and I'll make pasta once I finish this sheet."

Max frowned, objecting, "I can make dinner."

" _Or_ you could sit down and study for your science test. I'll make something to eat as soon as I finish these last few problems."

"I'm thirteen! I can cook without burning the house down."

"I assumed as much. You're still not making dinner."

Max couldn't help the frown that settled on her face, a unhappy and a little pouty.

She had been thinking ever since the day they had spent in Billy's bed that she wanted to help her brother more. Their peace treaty meant that she'd already stopped doing a lot of the things Neil beat him for, but she knew that her mom and Neil put Billy in charge and harped on him about responsibility. She didn't him to have to do with all of that when she was more than capable of helping.

"Can I at least help with dinner?"

"Chicken alfredo doesn't really take two people to make." Max let out a huff of hot air, frustration crawling through her. Billy must have caught onto what she was feeling, because he looked up from his homework. Raising an eyebrow at her, he asked, "Is there a reason you're being so pushy about this?"

For all that Neil harped on Billy not understanding responsibility, Max knew that when Billy was given a reason to care that didn't involve fists he took things seriously. She'd seen that in the way he'd been taking care of her since their peace treaty, since things had settled between them and they'd actually become the siblings Neil insisted they were. 

If Max told Billy how he was feeling, he would only push her out of the kitchen and insist that he had things under control. And for all that Max knew that Billy was perfectly capable of taking care of both of them, she didn't _want_ him to have to. 

"I have to learn how to cook at some point, don't I? You're graduating next year."

Billy stared at her for a moment, like he knew she was up to something but couldn't quite figure out what it was. 

"Whatever," he said at last. "You can get the ingredients out of the fridge or something."

It really didn't take both of them to make chicken alfredo, but Max tried to help where she could - carrying the pot of water they needed to boil to the stove, seasoning chicken while Billy watched over shoulder, keeping her mouth shut when Billy told her they had to add broccoli or else her mother would get upset about it, stirring the sauce when Billy told her too. 

Max had never really had any desire to help her mom cook before, but she found that helping Billy was actually sort of fun. Billy liked to sing while he cooked, something that Max had never noticed when he made her lunch. He'd whistle and hum, murmur lyrics that popped into head under his breath. And he didn't quite dance, but he walked around the kitchen with a bounce in his step and a swing to his hips. 

There was a strange sort of looseness to her brother as he cooked. 

Max asked if he liked cooking, wondering if maybe that was why he seemed to be having so much fun bouncing around the kitchen. And Billy had gone quiet, not really looking at her for a moment so much as staring into the alfredo sauce they were mixing. When he did spoke, it was to tell her that he didn't really like or hate cooking, but that it was something he had done with his mother before she had left his father. Neil almost never came home before dinner and never went into the kitchen even when he was awake, so cooking was something the two of them had done together without worrying about what his father would do to his mother for being too loud or what he would to Billy for being a boy in the kitchen. 

Max went quiet for a moment. She thought about all the things she did with her mother when Neil and Bill weren't around - about the way her mother sat on the toilet seat with Max between her legs on the days when Max wanted her hair done, about mother-daughter ice cream dates when money wasn't too tight, about her mother keeping the little peppermints in her purse that Max loved. She thought about all the things she did with her father before the divorce, before her mother decided that a new start with Neil was better than Max getting to stay with her dad - about curling up against his side to watch Frosty the Snowman and Miracle on 34th Street every Christmas, about standing on his toes as he danced her around the room, about her learning how to ride a skateboard while he walked beside her. 

And then she asked, softly, whether Billy wanted her to stop helping him cook.

Billy was quiet for a moment before shaking his head, telling her that he didn't mind her cooking with him. 

Max wondered, afterwards, if maybe Billy would want to go for a walk with her someday. 

It was nice to have traditions that belonged just to her and her mom or just to her and her dad, but maybe it would be nice to have things that belonged to her and Billy as well. 

_**you make me smile (i think i had forgotten how)** _

"Max, I swear to fucking christ!" Billy exclaimed, reaching out to swat at her hand as she reached for another one of his french fries. Liking her now didn't mean that he was going to just sit around letting her steal his food. "Eat your own shit!"

"I already did." He hadn't slapped her quick enough to keep her from getting the fries from his basket, so Max was looking down at her own plate, dipping it in the ketchup on her plate. "I want more." 

When he'd showed up to grab Max from the arcade earlier, she had asked if he would take her to the diner so she could eat with her friends. Neither of them had any place to be, so Billy had agreed, planning on just dropping her off and then leaving to go for a drive or something until she was done. 

But then Steve Harrington had leaned up against the passengers side door once Max had darted out, asking if Billy was planning on staying or if he was going to leave Steve alone with a bunch of thirteen year olds. 

The night of the Snow Ball - when Billy had apologized - the two of them had ended up drinking together at the quarry. It had been unexpected since Billy really hadn't been expecting Steve to forgive him, but Billy hadn't really wanted to go home alone with his dad and Steve had clearly been lonely and the two of them had ended up having fun. They'd argued about Steve's taste in music until they were both belting out Springfield's Jessie's Girl, complete with Billy drumming against the hood of the camaro. They'd talked about some of the kids from school - Carol and Tommy's disgusting co-dependency and Sarah Parker's absolutely horrendous neon outfits and how Logan from the basketball team really needed to learn how to land a free throw or they were both going to beat the shit out of him - and Billy had laughed more than he remembered laughing since moving to Hawkins. 

They'd been spending a bit more time together since then - talking for a couple of minutes when they were both dropping kids off somewhere, smoking cigarettes together while the kids were saying their goodbyes at the arcade, even pairing up for drills at basketball practice and tossing playful taunts as they worked - but it wasn't really anything that would have had Billy anticipating an invitation to eat with the kids. 

It had been just surprising enough for Billy to find himself agreeing instead of passing up the opportunity. 

And now he was shoved against the wall of a too-tiny booth with Max and her little boyfriend by his side while Harrington sat across from him with the other three nerds squeezed against him.

"I'll get you more then. Just stop fucking eating mine," he told her. He looked around the table, the kids had mostly been ignoring him as they chattered which didn't really bother him since Billy didn't mind just talking to Steve and Max, before raising his voice a bit, "Hey, shitstains." They all turned to look at him, Max the only one of the kids who didn't look even a little terrified, and once he had their attention Billy said, "I'm getting Max a basket of french fries. If I get a large are all of you going to eat them?"

There was a moment before Henderson said, "Yeah." And the rest of the group called in their agreements. 

Billy raised his hand, flagging the waitress down and ignoring the way that Steve was smiling at him like there was something amusing about Billy buying fries for a bunch of thirteen year olds. 

He would never say it to any of them, but by the time they had all finished eating, Billy thought that Max's friends weren't quite as bad as he thought they were.

They were definitely the biggest nerds he'd ever met with all of their talk of their Dungeon and Dragons campaign and arguments about their high scores on the arcade machines. But they weren't bad kids, not that he had ever really thought they were.

Henderson was possibly the most dramatic person that Billy had ever met - all loud explanations and wide hand gestures that Steve seemed to duck with ease. It probably should have been annoying, but mostly it was just amusing. Sinclair and Max were a nice combination of dry, kind of mean humor when they were put together. They balanced each other in a way that made them both absolutely hilarious - Max just a little too mean and Lucas just a little too sweet. Wheeler was just a mean as Max, and bossy too, but he was only thirteen so mostly Billy just thought he was ridiculous and stupid. And Will Byers was possibly the nerdiest of them all, sweet and quiet and exploding in bursts of enthusiasm when he got going, but Billy saw the way Will looked at Mike and something in his chest ached because it was just a little too familiar. 

And Steve somehow managed to watch over all of them without faltering - knew when Dustin needed to take a deep breath and calm down, warned Max when she was getting a little too rude and stood up for Lucas when he was letting the others get away with too much, let Mike boss the others around so he'd feel important but got him to back off when he was being too much, knew what to say to draw Will into a conversation when he had tucked into himself. 

They were loud and rowdy and sort of obnoxious, but tucked against the side of the diner booth Billy found that being part of their little group wasn't actually so bad. He was glad that Max had friends like them in her life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thank you all for the support of the first chapter! I hope this lives up to expectations. 
> 
> 2) titles for this section taken from: i'll be good by Jaymes Young, a quote from Laurie Colwin,
> 
> 3) debates for ages about the order of "you make me smile (i think i had forgotten how)" and "the comfort of secret-keepers" so I'd love to hear if anyone would have preferred it vice-versa or if they thought it worked. This chapter definitely doesn't have a narrative arch the same way the previous chapter did, rather it revolves around little individual moments in Billy & Max's relationship and sort of sets up a relationship coming up.


	3. poor unfortunate souls find each other

**_there are more terrifying things (but holy fuck)_ **

"Hargrove."

Billy looked away from the gas station candy shelves, he and Steve had plans to spend the night at Steve's place watching movies and Billy had offered to bring snacks, to find Chief Hopper standing next to him. 

Every muscle in Billy's body tensed, fingers tightening around the boxes of bottle caps and gobstoppers that he'd already picked up. Neil had trained him well, putting the fear of cops in him since he was young enough to understand and making sure that Billy would never tell them anything. And that was before one considered the general opinion of cops who looked at him, because Billy had always kept his head down to avoid what Neil would do if he got arrested but he had the appearance and attitude of a teen who got picked up regularly. 

"Chief," Billy said, straightening up. He pushed his shoulders back, making himself tall and square. He could practically hear his father hissing in his ear - _respect and responsibility._ "How are you today?"

"I'm doing just fine," Hopper answered. His gaze was piercing, felt searching and knowing at the same time. Billy used to get that sort of look from officers all the time, back when he was a boy with bruises on his back and arms that didn't match childhood injuries. It made his gut roll now just like it had then. "You going to the movies?"

"No, sir. Heading to Steve Harrington's house."

"Mmm. I heard you boys were friends now. I'm sure Joyce Byers appreciates that." 

Billy gritted his teeth to avoid flinching the way he wanted. He regretted how far the fight at the Byers place had gotten and in a weird way he was incredibly grateful for the demodog in the freezer, for the way that it falling out had reeled Billy back and set him on a path far from that of his father. 

"Yes, sir. I'm sure she does."

There was a quiet moment before something in Hopper softened, just a fraction of an inch.

"Look kid, I didn't come over here to scare you," he said. The part of Billy that had heard listened to his father's lectures about his masculinity rebelled against the the idea that Hopper had scared him, that anything could scare him. But he kept his mouth shut, because there really wasn't any need to argue with a police officer ever much less when they weren't getting on his shit. "I just need to ask you a favor."

The flash of surprise he felt was enough for some of the tension in Billy's body to seep out. "What?"

Hopper reached back, rubbing at the back of his neck like this situation was somehow as terrible and nerve-wrecking for him as it was for Billy. "I have a daughter who hangs out with your sister and the boys. She hasn't been going out very much since her living with me is new, but she and I both feel like she's ready for a bit more now."

"Okay....?"

"Steve Harrington's car is pretty much full already and I don't like Mike Wheeler very much anyway," Hopper continued. Billy had to bite down the nervous laugh that bubbled up at the end, because he didn't know Hopper's daughter or Wheeler that much but it was pretty obvious from the way Hopper spoke that there was some sort of romantic entanglement he was unhappy with. "And even if I did, she's told me that she wants to ride with Max if possible. So I was hoping that when I'm working, you might be willing to drive her to stuff with her friends since you'll be taking your sister anyway." Billy didn't answer right away, trying to process that a cop was asking him to take care of his kid instead of harassing him. Hopper must have taken it as a disagreement because he added, "I'll throw in some gas money every week that you take her somewhere."

"Oh. You don't uh...have to do that," Billy said. It was true that it wouldn't hurt to have the extra money, he had enough in savings and stuff to get him through to the summer without it but it would help to have a bit more to get by and keep him from dipping too far into that. 

"The cabin's a little out of the way, so I should have thought to offer anyway." There was a lapse of silence before Hopper said, "So, do we have a deal?"

That night Billy recounted the entire thing to Steve while the two of them were sitting on the couch, watching the commercials that were playing before Terminator. They were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, Steve cross-legged against one arm with a bowl of popcorn in his lap while Billy leaned against the others with his legs spread out and a bag of skittles balanced on his chest. 

Steve laughed at him when he told him that Hopper had scared the shit out of him, telling him that Chief Hopper was a little rough around the edges but he was one of the sweetest guys in town. There was something nice about the idea that Steve couldn't fathom why Billy would have been afraid of Hopper - that it never occurred to him that Billy had something to hide or, despite all of their history, that Billy had done anything bad enough for a cop to come after him. 

Afterwards, when Steve's hair had a mess of colorful skittles in his hair from Billy throwing them at him in retaliation for Steve's laughter, Steve told him about Hoppers daughter - telling him that Hopper had adopted her last year, that she was a little awkward since she'd never had much contact with people but she was a sweet girl, that the boys adored her and Max loved having another girl around anytime that she was able to join the others. 

Billy had been more worried about the 'chief's daughter' part of the equation than the 'another kid to take care of' part of the deal, but he found that Steve's assurance soothed something inside of him. Billy was learning how to deal with Max, but he knew that up until four months ago, he'd been the world's worst big brother. He wasn't exactly great with kids - not the way that Steve apparently was. Hearing that the chief's daughter - Jane, Steve told him was her name though she apparently sometimes went by El which was a shortened version of her middle name - was a good kid and wasn't likely to give him the same amount of trouble as the boys gave Steve was reliving. 

It was enough for Billy to enjoy the rest of the night without worrying too much about having to pick her up before taking Max to the arcade the next day. It was enough for him to spend the night quoting a movie that he'd seen five times while Steve laughed at his impersonation of Schwarzenegger, for him to wrestle with Steve over the last box of bottle caps that they had until he managed to press a cold soda against Steve's abs and yank the box out of his grasp while he squealed, to let himself sink into the Harrington's couch as they started their fourth movie and fall asleep with Steve's thighs warm against his feet and a feeling of safety in his chest. 

**_when i met you, i didn't know you would be important_ **

Max stood at Billy's side as they waited outside of Hopper's cabin, bouncing on her toes in excitement. 

Billy was sort of nervous about this entire thing, taking care of a kid other than Max was anxiety inducing even before considering that the kid in question was Chief Hopper's, but he was happy to see that Max was excited, apparently already considering Jane a good friend of hers. He knew that she'd struggled to make girl friends - both in California and in Hawkins - and as much as he loved the boys, she wanted a girl to talk to about and do girl stuff with. He knew there was a big difference between Max not wanting to do girl stuff and not being able to do girl stuff because she didn't have anyone to do it with. 

He didn't get anymore time to consider his nerves, because the door was swinging open. 

"Hey kids," Hopper greeted. He would usually be at work when Billy came to pick Jane up, but apparently they'd decided that he would be home for the first time. No one had explained it to Billy, but he assumed it was so that he could come get Jane if it turned out that she hated Billy or something. 

"Hello, sir," Billy returned. 

"Hi Chief," Max said. "Is El ready to go?"

Before Hopper could say anything, a girl popped up behind him, "Yes." Billy took a moment to look over his new charge. She was a little taller than Max with wavy brown hair that cut off around her chin. She was wearing a black sweater with red, green, and yellow triangles and a pair of yellow pants.

She didn't really look like any of the kids Max had hung out with before, but Billy didn't really know what sort of girls Max liked to hang out with so he guessed it wasn't that strange. 

"You sure?" Hopper asked, looking at her with an expression that spoke of a deep concern and worry. "You've got your stuff?"

She nodded, holding up a small pale pink children's purse. "Money. Phone number. Walkie talkie." 

Hopper pressed his lips together for a moment before asking, "You know the rules?"

She nodded again, dropping her purse to hold up her hand and count off with her fingers, "Listen to Billy. Tell him if I'm uncomfortable. Tell him if I need to come home." Billy felt a flash of surprise-pleasure at the idea that Hopper had told Jane these things, trusting him to take care of her a situation that would come up. It was enough to make him think of Neil's mantra of respect and responsibility with a bitter, victorious twist. 

"And?"

Jane had been reciting her stuff without much trouble, sounding like they had gone through this plenty of times before he got here but like she didn't mind going over it again, but now her face flushed a little bit. Her voice was a little whiny as she said, "Jim...."

"Jane."

She glanced at Max for a moment before saying, "Don't be alone with Mike."

Then Hopper glanced over at Billy, "You hear that, Hargrove?"

Billy swallowed the laugh in his throat. He and Steve had already made plans to hang out at the arcade instead of just ditching the kids since it was apparently Jane's first time. Billy supposed that babysitting a little bit wouldn't be that bad, not when it was a task that was bound to be as funny as this one. "Yes, sir."

Hopper watched him, as if debating if Billy could properly cockblock a thirteen year old Mike Wheeler, before nodding. "Alright. Have fun then."

Jane was an entirely different passenger than Max was. Where Max insisted on picking the music and argued until she was blue in the face if Billy picked something she really hated, Jane didn't seem to mind anything. She listened to everything - from the Metallica album Billy had in when they first picked her up to the Cyndi Lauper and Whitney Houston that came on the radio when he told Max she could switch it - with a curious look on her face, like it was all new to her and she couldn't quite figure out what she liked. She didn't belt out every song like Max and Billy did, but she smiled when she really liked something and he could see her dancing along with the beat when he glanced back in the mirror. 

Once they were at the arcade, the boys folded the two girls into their group without trouble, but Billy noticed that she was quietest of the group. Will gave her a run for his money, but Will was clearly more comfortable than she was and it meant that his shell had cracked in ways that it didn't in other situations. 

He kept an eye on her because of it, remembering how she had promised Hopper to let him know if she was too uncomfortable and wanted to go home. Despite her initial discomfort, though, she seemed to relax the longer she was there. She watched Max play Pac-Man for a while before taking a turn of her own, let Will and Lucas teach her how to play Burger Time while ignoring how they argued about strategy, drank the slushie Mike bought her while laughing with the others at Max demolishing Dustin in Galaga. 

When it seemed like she was doing fine without his interference, Billy let himself relax and turned his attention to hanging out with Steve. The two of them mostly hung out at the small snack bar inside the arcade, sharing a large nachos while the kids ran around, but at one point Billy played Frogger for a bit because Steve didn't believe that he was the best Frogger player on the planet and Steve insisted on a few tries of Q*bert. Spending time with Steve, even while doing something as nerdy as hanging out at the arcade, was fun. It left a face splitting grin on Billy's face, warmth in his chest, and butterflies in his stomach. 

And if the feeling was just a little too similar to what he'd felt in California while looking at Scott Thomas, then Billy pushed the thought down because it was easier to ignore his feelings than to think about the consequences if Neil found out. Because Steve Harrington already meant more to Billy than Scott Thomas ever had, and just the thought of Neil beating Steve the way he had Scott when he caught them was enough to break his heart in his chest. 

So he ignored the butterflies in his stomach and the warmth in his chest, just handed the girls the tickets he'd racketed up while playing games with Steve and teased Steve for not having as many to give the boys as he'd gotten for the girls. 

**_kindred souls, forged in different fires_ **

Billy was sitting in the Hargrove's living room, watching an episode of Knight Rider with the volume turned down low enough to hear Max and Jane giggling somewhere else in the house. 

It was the first time that the girls had been allowed to have a sleepover. Hopper had been okay with it for a while, wanting Jane to be safe but also wanting her to branch out and do the same things that normal girls her age got to do, but Neil had been kicking up a fuss about having the police chief's daughter in his house. Billy supposed he was worried that he might not be able to control his temper with Billy and Jane would tell her father something he didn't want getting out. But Susan and Neil were in Chicago for the weekend, going to visit a friend of Susan's who lived there, and Susan had convinced Neil to let Jane spend the night while they were away, murmuring about how watching over both girls would teach Billy responsibility (and Billy might have laughed at that - because he had been taking care of Max since they moved to Hawkins and they'd been doing better than ever in the past few months - if he hadn't wanted to be the reason the sleepover got canceled). 

He was debating whether to get up and cook dinner or call for pizza when the girls burst into the living room, Max sliding in from the hallway with Jane behind her. 

"Billy," Max said, and a smile pulled at Billy's lips immediately because it was kind of funny how her voice gave away that she wanted him to do something for her. "Will you give us manicures? And paint our nails?"

He considered it for a moment before shrugging one shoulder and nodding, "Sure." It wasn't like he had anything else to do tonight, he'd known for a week that he would be taking care of the girls so he hadn't made plans with Steve or paid much attention to the party talk at school. 

"Will you do our hair too?"

Billy raised an eyebrow. "Why? You planning on sneaking out to see your boyfriend?"

"No!" Max insisted. "It's just that Jane has never had anyone do her hair, so I thought maybe you would do it for us if you were going to do our nails."

He glanced between them curiously. He doubted that Hopper knew how to do hair, but he also knew that Jane had only started living with him recently and it was strange to think that no one had played with her hair before. It was the sort of thing that, in his experience, most women and girls liked to do with each other.

Still, it was sort of sad to think that no one had ever pampered her like this. It rung just a little too familiar, reminded him just too much of never having a parent who cared to make sure he had nice clothes for school or ran fingers through his hair to make sure it wasn't too knotted or make sure the childhood cuts on his knobby knees were bandaged.

"Sure," Billy told her. "But I'm not doing anything more extreme than curling. Susan and Hopper would both kill me if I have you guys impromptu haircuts." And that without even considering what Neil would do to him for fucking up that badly. 

"Okay!" Max turned around, "Jane, you can sit on the couch with Billy, okay? I'm gonna go grab the nail kit and some of the hair products my mom lets me use."

"Okay."

Max made her way back down the hallway, but Jane didn't move to sit down with Billy or to leave. 

"You can come sit," Billy told her, wondering if she was uncomfortable being alone with him. The two of them had been around each other plenty, but he supposed that Max had always been with them. 

Jane was quiet for a moment before nodding, "Okay. Thank you." She made her way across the room, coming to sit down on his left. There was silence for just a moment after she sat before she said, "Thank you for agreeing to help."

Billy shrugged. "It's fine. No big deal."

She shook her head. "It is."

He was about to assure her that really it wasn't, Max had taken to asking him to paint her nails for her since he did them for the Snow Ball and he'd pulled her hair up for her once or twice when Susan had left the house before they left for school, but their eyes met and Billy found himself losing his thoughts to the look in her eyes. It was sad and knowing, understanding. It had something in Billy's stomach turning, the way it did whenever he thought about Neil putting his hands on Max. It was the knowledge that someone had done something to this girl that made her feel the same way as Billy - made her feel fragile and angry and broken. And maybe she was better at dealing with how it had broken her than Billy was, but he looked in her eyes and knew that she felt just as broken as he did. 

"You do my hair," she said. Something lit in her eyes, like a resolution, as she said, "I will bandage your bloody knees."

And Billy wondered how she knew that he had been thinking about that, how she knew that he had been comparing them in his head, but before he could ask Max was coming back down the hallway. 

Since he'd given Max a manicure not too long ago, Billy worked on Jane's nails first. She seemed a little tense while he was cutting her nails, like someone had done this to her before and it hadn't been nearly as fun as it was when Billy did, but she relaxed again when she was soaking her nails in the water bath he had Max mix. Afterwards she'd watched him paint her nails with such intense fascination that he wondered if she knew anyone who wore painted nails regularly, much less who had done this for her. The idea of her being that isolated while she was going through whatever it was that bonded them together was enough to make him feel sick, so instead Billy focused on coloring her nails the soft sky blue that Max had picked out when Jane said she didn't know what color would look nice. Once her nails were dried, he went back to them and added little yellow polka dots over them. He had never done anything like that with his own nails, but he'd known a girl in California who had liked wearing polka dots and he'd seen her do it enough times to have picked up on how to make it work. 

He worked on Max afterwards, painting her nails the same yellow as the polka dots that he'd put on Jane's nails. He let some of his attention waver as he did, finding that he was getting used to the shape and size of Max's nails and didn't need to concentrate as much. 

He listened to the girls gossip as he worked, Jane hesitant until Max assured her that this was what girls always did when the got their nails done and Billy backed her up with laughter in his voice. They talked about romance - Max talked about how Lucas still got nervous about kissing her even though she had kissed him first and Billy had started arguing with her about how she didn't need to kiss boys at all until Jane had tentatively offered that she had kissed Mike Wheeler at the Snow Ball and Billy got sidetracked with telling her that she could absolutely do better than him. And they talked about girls who went to Max's school - Jane was being home schooled by Hopper since she was behind so Max caught up on how Jodie Smith had kissed like half the boys in the middle school and how Lily Thompson had gotten her period while wearing white gym shorts and had cried in the school office for like three hours and how Rosa Gomez was always staring at Lucas so Max thought that maybe she was going to have to fight her and Billy tried his hardest to listen without laughing at how dramatic Max was making middle school sound. And they talked about their friends - how Dustin thought that Steve was way cooler than he actually was which had Billy chiming in with agreements, how they both wanted to talk to Will more because he always seemed more comfortable with the others and Billy had to bite his lip to keep from saying that it was probably because Will didn't know what to do with girls, how they both thought Erica Sinclair was super cool even if the boys kept insisting that they couldn't hang out with Lucas' little sister. 

It was enough to loosen some of the knots in Billy's stomach. Because he hated the idea that anything that had happened to him had happened to Jane, and tried very very carefully not to think about how things much worse things could be for little girls in his situation, because she was here with him and Max - smiling and laughing and gossiping while she got her nails done, flipping through Max's magazines as she tried to find something she wanted Billy to do with her short hair, listening to Max explain the plots of the movies she'd gotten from the video store so that Jane could make an informed choice about which one to watch once they had dinner. 

And Billy hoped that she would get to have more moments like this, more moments of happiness and joy and childhood that would stop her from becoming as broken and bitter as he was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the relationship being set up in it!
> 
> 2) I hope it's not too confusing to be calling Eleven Jane throughout this story, but this is told from Billy's pov even if it's a 3rd pov and that means that calling her Eleven wouldn't make much sense.
> 
> 3) It's not entirely clear here, but Billy does sort of know about Eleven from the night he fought the demodogs. But in a sort of abstract "there's a girl out there with telepathy" way rather than a "i know the girl and all the secrets of her background" way. 
> 
> 4) chapter and section titles from: a play on the Little Mermaid's "Poor Unfortunate Souls", an Aaron Polson quote,


	4. every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness

_**a little bit of licorice and you by my side** _

"We're getting a large popcorn right?"

"Yes."

"And soda?"

"Yes."

"Can we get candy too? Runts and nerds and fun dip? Oh and something chocolate? Reese pieces maybe?"

"Jesus, Max," Billy said. He looked over at her, Max standing to his right while Jane stood on his left. A year ago he never would have imagined spending the day after Valentines at the movie theater with his sister and one of her friends, but here he was - taking the girls to see The Breakfast Club instead of going for round five or six with whatever girl he'd spent Valentine's night with. "You want me to just buy out the entire snack counter?"

"Is that an option?"

"No, fuck off." Then, because Billy had become a pushover at some point in the last few months, he said, "We'll get the largest bucket of popcorn available, a soda for each of us, and you can each pick one thing of candy."

"Okay," Max said, sounding like she didn't care that much. "Coke and runts."

"Fine." He turned to look over at Jane. She was looking all over the lobby, head turning as she looked from the posters for the upcoming movies to the bright lights of the snack counter to the people milling around them. He reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder to catch her attention. When she was focused on him instead of the room, he asked, "Jane, what do you want? I'm buying each of you a soda and a box of candy."

Jane looked at him for a moment, like she was trying to process the question, before her gaze shifted to the candy stand. There was a moment before she looked back at him, a little furrow between her eyes, "I don't know. Mike got me chocolate yesterday. I've never had other candies."

"Okay," Billy said, processing the information and trying to ignore the way his heart broke in his chest. As the couple in front of them bought their stuff and stepped aside, Billy said, "Alright, Max. You win - we're buying out the entire snack counter. We'll get a box of every candy here and we'll split them between the three of us."

Max let out a loud whoop as she moved forward to close the space between her and the counter. "Got it!" 

Billy was about to follow her, already reaching towards his back pocket to grab his wallet and thinking about how much this was going to cost him, when he felt a tug on his shirt.

He looked back to find Jane had reached out for him, two fingers wrapped around the back of his shirt. Before he could ask her what was up, she was saying, "Thank you."

"It's not a problem." He hesitated for a moment before saying, "That's what we agreed when you stayed over isn't it? I do your hair and you bandage my knees."

Because Billy had known when she said it that it wasn't literal. He had known since the words left her mouth that _You do my hair. I will bandage your bloody knees._ meant something like - _we will teach each other that the world can be gentle and fun rather than bruised and bloody._

She was quiet for a moment before her fingers loosened, a softer smile coming over her features, "Yes."

"Billy!" He looked away from Jane at Max's call, finding her looking annoyed up at the snack counter. "He won't get me the candy unless you prove you can pay for it."

"Alright, alright. We're coming."

Billy had never spent the day after Valentines like this before. 

It turned out that going to the movies with two teenage girls wasn't as bad as he would have anticipated, though. 

The Breakfast Club wasn't exactly Billy's type of movie, but it wasn't exactly a bad one. It was cheesy, but it was funny - had Max laughing and Jane grinning. He learned during the movie that Max was the worse popcorn hog than any girl he had ever been on a date with, that Jane didn't like green skittles and that pop rocks made her giggle like a newborn, and that if either of them asked for a drink of his soda he might as well just give it to them because they were both going to drink a fourth of it rather than just a sip. 

After the movie, Billy took the two of them for lunch just outside of Hawkins so that they could get something other than greasy diner food. After Billy and Max had figured out what they wanted to eat, they listened to Jane tell them what she liked and searched through the menu until they found something they thought she might want to try - finally landing on chicken alfredo with promises that she could have some of Billy's french fries if it turned out she didn't like it. 

The girls spent lunch talking about the day before, Billy listening while he ate the chicken sandwich he'd ordered and offering occasional comments.

Max talked about how she and Lucas had gotten ice cream together, how their feet had bumped under the table as they laughed and how his lips had been cold when they kissed. Billy had bit his lip to keep himself from objecting, because he'd already known that Max was kissing boys and he didn't want to push so much that she stopped feeling comfortable talking about this stuff while he was around. He needed to make sure he knew if he had to kick Sinclair's ass and he couldn't do that if Max wasn't willing to talk about her relationship with him. 

Jane told them how Mike had invited her to his place and how he'd set up a pillow fort in the Wheeler's living room so that the two of them could watch a bunch of movies that Jane had never seen. He'd gotten her a box of chocolates that the two of them had eaten while watching Charlotte's Web and Willy Wonka and Escape to Witch Mountain. Billy ate his sandwich while thinking about how he was going to need to keep an eye Mike Wheeler as well, because he wasn't going to let Jane get hurt anymore than he was going to let Max get hurt. 

And for all of Billy's thoughts about kicking the boys asses if they hurt his girls, he found himself a glad that their first relationships were bringing them so much joy because when he'd been their age he'd been taking Kelly Stronn out while pretending that he wasn't more interested in her older brother's thighs than her growing breasts. 

On the drive home afterwards, Billy rolled all of the windows down despite the cool February air and let Max blast Madonna without arguing. And if Jane's voice joined in, quiet but loud enough to be heard, while Max and Billy sung out, _"'Cause we're living in a material world and I am a material girl"_ than Billy just smiled wider and avoided saying anything that might make her self conscious about it. 

**_the differences in men_**

"Whoa. What happened in here?"

Billy looked away from the counter he was wiping down to find Hopper standing in the kitchen doorway. 

The older man had been called into the station unexpectedly, so he'd called Joyce Byers and asked if she could ask Billy to stay at the cabin with Jane for a bit once he picked the girls up from her place. 

Billy hadn't had any plans that night, so when Joyce relayed the message he'd just shrugged, told her to call the station and let Hopper know that he didn't mind as long as Max coming along was okay. 

"Jim," Jane chirped, voice bright. It was stupid and sappy, but there was a pleasant warmth that came with hearing Jane being so happy to see her father. It was this knowledge that no matter what had happened to her before, she was happy here. She lifted up the plate in front of her, brandishing it towards him. "We made waffles."

"What like real ones?" he asked. Billy found it hard to look away as he stepped into the room, setting his hat down on the counter with the girls and peering down at the plates they were eating from. It was difficult not to track a man like Hopper, one who was so much bigger than Billy's dad and had actual training in how to subdue someone. 

"Yeah," Max said. Billy held his breath for just a moment as Hopper looked over at her, but it rushed out of him when the man just looked curious rather than annoyed with her interruption. "Billy knows how to make them so we brought my moms waffle maker over for dinner."

"They taste good?"

Jane nodded. "Almost better than Eggo."

"Almost huh?" Hopper said, fondness and amusement in his voice. Jane hummed, nodding again even as she returned to her food. Looking away from her, he said, "I assume the waffle making is why the kitchen is a mess?"

"Yes, sir," Billy said. He swallowed down the feeling that bubbled in his gut as Hopper met his eyes. "We got a little carried away with some of the ingredients. I'm picking it up, though."

"You've eaten, right?" The look on Hopper's face wasn't exactly angry, but it was a little dark with something like concern. "Because I appreciate you cleaning, but I don't want it happening if you haven't eaten yet."

Billy was caught off-guard by the question. 

Before he could find the words to say anything, Jane said, eyes still focused on the waffle she was cutting, "Jim is good, Billy." Knowing all that they shared it sounded a little like - _Jim is good, Billy. Don't be surprised that he cares. He is not like the other men we know._

Hopper looked mildly confused, glancing between the two of them, but instead of questioning them, he settled for saying, "Well, I'm glad you think so."

The longer Billy knew Jane, the more time he started spending around Hopper's cabin. It wasn't like he was hanging out with the girls just to hang out with them, he loved spending time with them but sometimes Billy needed to hang out with people who were his own age, but because the more comfortable Jane got with Billy, the more comfortable Hopper seemed to get with asking Billy to take care of her. 

Hopper used to ask Joyce Byers to watch Jane when he got called into the station for something unexpected, but now that Billy was an option he seemed to prefer asking him to watch her instead of taking Joyce's time away from her sons on her rare days off. And Billy never minded an excuse to get out of his house, to get away from his father, so he was almost always happy to babysit for Hopper. 

When Billy went over in the mornings Jane, Max - because Max almost always insisted on going with him when he babysat because she wanted to hang out with Jane -, and Billy would make breakfast together. Jane was a huge fan of Eggos and handmade waffles once they tried them the first time, but slowly they convinced her to try other things as well. They learned how to make pancakes and french toast and omelets. They learned that Jane liked covering her waffles in whipped cream and strawberries when given the option, that Billy was really great at shaping pancakes when he knew what he was aiming for, and that Max was absolutely going to ruin the omelets if they let her flip them. When breakfast was done, the three of them would sit on Hopper's couch and watch morning cartoons until Hopper came back or they had to leave for plans with the boys. 

If Hopper asked Billy to come over after school in the afternoon, Billy would find a simple snack for all of them before the three of them gathered around the table. Billy would work on his homework while Max and Jane worked on Max's together. The first time it'd happened, Billy had told Max to work on her own shit, but it was pretty clear that helping Max with her homework was helping Jane get caught up with kids her own age so they kept doing it. Once they finished, if the girls didn't have plans with the boys or their individual boyfriends, then they'd disappear into Jane's room to read magazines and listen to music and gossip and all of the typical teenage girl stuff that they liked to do together while Billy hangout in the living room, usually flipping idlely through TV channels until he found something he didn't mind watching. 

When Billy had to come over a little later in the evening, the three of them would make dinner or Billy would take them out somewhere. Regardless of what they did, he always made sure there was extra for Hopper to eat since he didn't think the kind of unexpected police business which required the sheriff really left time for the man to grab something. Billy usually brought his VHS player over on those days and the three would all settle on the couch to watch movies for the night. Those nights also became the nights when Billy obliged the occasional request for manicures or pedicures. 

A few times Hopper had even had to call the Hargrove residence in the middle of the night because Joyce Byers had a night shift when an emergency came up. Max occasionally came with him on those calls, but Neil was never happy on those nights and Billy usually didn't bother waking her up when he knew that even asking to take Max with him would incite his father's wrath. So those nights Billy usually went over to the cabin by himself, curling up on the couch with a thick quilt and sleeping quietly with the knowledge that Neil couldn't get to him when he was there. 

And the more time that he spent at the cabin, the more he realized that Jane had been right when she called Hopper a good man. No matter how rough the business that pulled him out had been Hopper always came home happy to see his daughter and thankful for Billy watching her, even on the nights when the three of them had done something to trash an area of the house. 

And Billy found himself incredibly glad that for that - because no one deserved a father like his, and especially not a sweet girl like Jane. 

**_there are the things worth fighting for (i don't know if you are one)_ **

Billy was working his way into his nacho container, trying to grab one with cheese on it without getting his fingers covered in the stuff, when someone dropped into the chair across the table. 

"Can I have one of these?" Steve asked, already leaning forward to grab one of them. 

"The only reason I'm letting you have one is because I'm too preoccupied to smack you," Billy said as he pulled the chip he'd been wrestling with out of the container. 

Steve flashed him a smile, a large boyish thing that made Billy's heart thump in his chest. "That's the only reason I asked."

Billy hummed a bit, glancing away from Steve and towards the arcade machines because it was easier than focusing on him currently. Max had been teaching Jane how to play Dig Dug while they waited for the boys, but it seemed like they'd abandoned the machine in favor of catching up. 

"You're late," Billy told him, watching as Max scowled her friends with her hands on her hips. Jane, standing at her side, didn't look quite as vicious, but there was something fierce in her eyes that Billy liked to attribute to how much time she'd been spending with him and Max. As she grew more comfortable with the world around her, she was learning from those around her what behaviors were acceptable and clearly she was finding some sort of comfort in the assertiveness that Billy and Max both held. 

"Ugh I know," Steve said. "We had a hiccup at Dustin's place."

"Mmmm?"

"I picked him up last because he was doing something with his mom, so he didn't get the front seat," Steve told him. "Which wouldn't have been a problem last year, but Dustin's the biggest of them and it's easier for Lucas, Will, and Mike to fit in the backseat than Lucas, Will, and Dustin."

Billy turned back to him, raising one eyebrow. "You picked Wheeler up first?"

Steve shrugged as he grabbed another nacho. "I had to talk to Nancy about something. I got Mike first so that the others wouldn't have to wait while we were chatting."

He hummed again, trying to shove down the feeling bubbling in his chest. There were a lot of reasons why he didn't like Nancy Wheeler, but none of the valid reasons seemed to matter as much as how jealous he was that she'd gotten to have Steve at one point. 

They sat there for a while, eating quietly and occasionally looking over at the arcade machines to check up on their charges. And when Billy felt a little more in control of his emotions, he asked, "Hey, you wanna get your ass kicked at Frogger again?"

Once, Steve would have argued that there was no guarantee that Billy would do better than him. 

Now, the two of them had spent enough time fucking around at the arcade together than Steve knew better. 

"You feel like playing today?"

Billy shrugged. "The prize counter has these stuffed animals that the girls want matching versions of. I figure if I'm stuck here, I might as well help get them the tickets they need."

"Mhm. They're really getting along now, aren't they?"

"They didn't before?"

"Not from what I've heard. I don't think they hated each other or anything, but I think there was some jealousy and arguing when they first met."

It was strange for Billy to hear, because the two of them had seemed thick as thieves since Billy had met Jane. It was partially Jane's desire to ride with Max that had spurred Hopper into asking Billy to watch after her to begin with. 

Billy glanced over at the girls, finding the entire group gathered around Dragon's Quest with Jane cheering on Max while Dustin and the boys seemed to be trying to distract her enough for her to die. He shrugged again, saying, "Maybe they just learned that boys aren't worth fighting over."

"Hey now," Steve said, mock offense in his tone and on his face. "You think my boys aren't worth fighting for?"

Billy thought about all of the boys in California who had made his heartbeat a little too fast and how all of the kisses he'd actually enjoyed had been quick things in hidden alcoves because sweet kisses were nice but they weren't worth the consequences of his father finding out. 

Billy looked at the beautiful boy in front of him, with the soft hair that Billy wanted so badly to run his fingers through and the soft brown eyes that Billy always wanted on him and the huge heart he carried in his chest that Billy wanted to carry just a piece of, and said, "There aren't any boys worth fighting for."

His conversation with Steve had put Billy in a strange mood, not really upset so much as he was acutely aware of things he usually tried not to think about. Thinking about his feelings for Steve was almost always accompanied by thinking about what Neil would do if he found out, but now it felt like Billy could feel the itch of the cast he'd worn on their drive from California and the ache of his black-eye and the sharp pain of Neil dragging him around by his hair. 

It must have been easy to spot the shift because Steve pulled back a little bit. He leaned against the Frogger machine while Billy played, occasionally glancing over and commenting when Billy made a quick save, but mostly he focused on the kids and spoke to Dustin when the boy came to play the Donkey Kong machine next to Billy. But he stayed there, always just a few inches away from Billy. It was a sort of silent support, not forcing Billy to talk to him or focus on him but just letting him be, that Billy wasn't used to. It was the sort of support that made Billy's fingers twitch because he wanted to reach out for this beautiful, wonderful boy next to him. And it was the sort of thing that only reinforced Billy's mood, that made him glance over and see how Neil would bust Steve's face open if he caught them together. 

Billy wasn't sure if the girls picked up on his mood too or if they just got sick of the boys, but they approached him to go home sooner than he was anticipating. At that point he was all too happy to leave, so he just followed them to the prize counter. The two of them used the tickets they had, along with the ones that Billy gave them, to get matching stuffed dragons - Jane's green with pink fire coming out of it's mouth while Max's was red with yellow fire. He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't notice them getting a third one until Jane was holding a little black dragon with blue fire out for him. 

His thoughts were so wrapped up in his father that for a moment his face twisted and he thought about telling her to fuck off, that he was a man and he didn't need stupid stuffed animals. 

But then he looked at the two of them properly, Max holding her dragon close to her chest with angry embarrassment on her face and Jane's tucked under her arm as she held his out without a trace of mocking on her face. It calmed something inside of him. He took a deep breath before reaching out for the dragon, murmuring a quiet thank you. 

After they left the arcade, Billy ended up offering to take them out to ice cream before driving Jane home. 

And over arguments about whether it was appropriate to mix flavors on a two scoop cone and debates over whether Jane should try something new or eat what she knew she liked, Billy found himself perking up slowly. 

Because the thing was this - Billy had learned that boys weren't worth fighting over when fighting over them meant his father potentially killing him.

Because the thing was this - Billy didn't really care about romance anymore, not when taking care of Max and Jane made him happier than he ever had been sneaking around in California. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> 2) sources for chapter and section titles: a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson
> 
> 3) the final section of this was not at all what I intended. It sort of wrote itself? So I'm interested in how you guys feel about it! Especially since i think I've decided on it being a really nice segue into the next part of this fic.


	5. snips and snails and puppy dogs tails

**_the piece we didn't know we were missing_ **

Billy was sprawled out on the Hopper's couch, back against the couch arm and his legs spread out in front of him. He was watching old episodes of Knight Rider while occasionally checking up on the girls back in Jane's bedroom. The two of them were sprawled out on their stomachs in Jane's bed, shoulders touching as they flipped through a magazine. Occasionally their giggles would raise high enough to drift out towards him. 

He was wondering if the girls might want chicken tacos for dinner, he already knew that Max loved them and he'd been learning that Jane liked most chicken dishes, when there was a knocking on the door. 

"Jane!" Billy called out as he pushed himself up off the couch. "Was your dad expecting anyone before he went to work?" Hopper had been a bit frantic as he pushed his way through the door, because Hawkins policed a few nearby small towns as well and the call had been in one of them which meant he had to hurry to get there in a decent amount of time, so it wasn't inconceivable that he'd forgotten to tell Billy something when he showed up. 

"No," Jane answered back. Billy hummed a bit as he moved towards the door. There weren't very many people that knew where the cabin was and how to get to it. Before he could really grow concerned about it though, Jane added, "It's Joyce and Will at the door. We weren't expecting them, but Joyce wanted Jim's help."

Billy tossed a look over his shoulder, glancing into the bedroom where Jane and Max were still focused on their magazine. There wasn't a window in Jane's room that would let her see who was in the front yard, but she spoke with absolute confidence.

"How do you know that?" he asked. Jane just shrugged, not really answering. Billy watched her for a moment, suspicious, but before he could say anything else there was more knocking on the door. 

Even with Jane's statement, he peeked through the curtains - and she was absolutely right, standing in front of the doorway was Joyce Byers with Will in front of her and her hands on his shoulders - before moving to open the door. 

Joyce, looking a little worried and frantic, seemed relieved for just a moment before registering who had opened the door. "Billy?"

"At your service."

Face dropping, she said, "Hopper got called away?"

"Yeah. Over to Eagle Point." He glanced between the two before asking, "Were you hoping he could watch Will?"

"Yes. I got called in for third shift and Jonathan's out on a date with Nancy. I was hoping that Will could stay here until Jonathan could come get him."

"Oh." Billy glanced over his shoulder at the girls before looking down at Will. The boy was standing mostly still, the exception being the fidgeting of his fingers against the spine of the sketchbook in his hands. He wasn't quite sure what possessed him to do so, but Billy lifted his eyes back up to Joyce's face and said, "I could watch him if you want? And I can drop him off with Jonathan on my way back home after Hopper gets back."

For a moment Joyce looked like she was going to object, but the idea of losing a shift or leaving Will home without Jonathan must have won out because she said instead, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm already watching Max and Jane. Will won't be any extra trouble. And your place isn't too far out of my way when I head home with Max."

Joyce looked down at her son, catching his attention by tightening her grip on his shoulders. "Are you okay staying with Billy and the girls?"

Will glanced up at Billy, something a little nervous in his eyes. And Billy wasn't entirely certain what to do with that, not when neither Max or Jane had ever been nervous around him, but he settled on what he hoped was a friendly smile. 

Will's face flushed a light pink and he glanced down at the ground as he murmured, "That's fine, mom."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah..."

Joyce was quiet for a second before nodding. "Alright. We'll have a pizza night tomorrow to make up for me having to go in tonight, alright?" Will gave a small nod. Joyce hesitated for just another moment before being down, pressing her lips to the top of his head in a kiss. "Okay. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Love you too." 

Joyce stepped back from her son, giving Billy a quick smile. "Thank you for this, Billy."

"No problem." She ruffed her son's hair quickly before turning and starting her way towards her car. Billy stood there with Will for a moment, quiet until Joyce had started her car and was backing out. As she was leaving, he asked, "How do you feel about chicken tacos?"

Will had clearly never really cooked before, but he seemed to grow more okay with the idea of helping once he learned that the girls were going to be there as well.

Billy did his best to divide up the work evenly between the three of them - letting each of them pour certain spices for the chicken and letting all of them help shred it when they got there. He kept each of them running around the kitchen - having Max grab the tortilla shells so they could warm them even if they weren't homemade, having Jane cut a tomato and onion while he watched her out of the corner of his eye, and having Will dump cheese and lettuce into containers for them to grab from rather than the bags. 

And the further through the process they got, the more Will seemed to open up. He had been nervous while scooping chili powder for the chicken, but by the time he was scooping lettuce into the container there was a wide smile on his face. He wasn't really participating in the singing and dancing that happened while Billy was cooking the chicken, but by the time Billy had cut the kids pieces to shred Will joined in, not quite as enthusiastic or loud as the others but there nonetheless. By the time they were finished cooking Will didn't seem to be having any problems pushing his way between Max and Jane to fix himself food and when they all went to sit on the couch with their plates, Will was arguing with the girls about whether to watch a movie or episodes of the Crosby Show. 

Having Will around wasn't too different from watching the girls when he wasn't around. 

After eating they ended up sitting at the table playing cards. Max seemed to have some sort of sixth sense when it came to Go Fish, Jane seemed to have the best luck with war while Will had the absolute worst luck when it came to Old Maid, and Billy trashed all of them when they played Crazy Eights. It was a fun night, filled with conversation and laughter and trash talk. 

And when he herded Max and Will into his car so they could all go home, they were both smiling even as they leaned against the doors half asleep. 

Billy wasn't quite sure how it happened, but watching Will that one night turned into Will becoming part of Billy's group without much thought. 

He still hung out with Steve and the rest of the boys, but Jane and Max started inviting him along on the outings they took without the others - when they wanted to see a movie the boys sneered at or when they wanted to go shopping or just when Billy offered to take them out for ice cream. When Billy was driving over to watch Jane for Hopper, Max would ask if they could stop by the Byers to see if Will wanted to come. And if Billy was asked to watch Will, something which became common once Joyce knew Billy would watch him so that Jonathan didn't have to cancel plans with Nancy, than Max would ask if they could call Hopper's place to see if Jane could come out with them. 

When Billy was driving the girls to hang out with the others, they ended up picking up Will too since he seemed to prefer sitting in the camaro's backseat with Jane to squeezing between Mike and Lucas in Steve's car.

Billy wasn't entirely sure how it had happened or why it was happening, but he didn't really mind it either. 

And before he knew it, his girls had just become 'his kids'. 

Max and Billy were bound together by their fear of Neil and the expectations, by Billy needing to be the perfect son or get his face beaten in and Max needing to be his princess or fear being treated the way Billy was. 

Jane and Billy were bound by the blood and bruises of their childhood, by every time Billy's back had been a molted mess or he'd told a lie about a broken bone and by everything in the world that Jane's isolation had kept her from and everything she hesitated over while fear pounded through her. 

Will and Billy were bound by something that they didn't talk about, by the way Billy had caught Will looking at Mike Wheeler and the way he flushed when Billy took his shirt off when he got something on it while cooking, by Billy always pressing a little too close to Steve when they were together and watching his lips with a little too much focus when he spoke to him. 

But for all that Billy and Max talked about Neil and all that Billy and Jane reminded each other that the world wasn't terrible, Billy and Will were quiet about what drew them together. 

Or at least, they were for a while. 

_**secrets connecting us like spiderwebs** _

"Billy?" He'd been watching Max and Jane, making sure they reached the girls bathroom in the ice cream parlor without any creepy men interfering with them, when he heard Will say his name. 

"Whats up?" Billy said, glancing back over at the boy sitting across from him. 

Will wasn't looking at him, focusing down on the scoops of sprinkle covered chocolate chip ice cream he was poking his spoon against. He'd started the night out as energetic as he ever got, quieter than the girls but talking more than he would have in most other situations and smiling as he listened to them, but Billy had watched him fold in on himself over the last few minutes while the girls talked about their boyfriends. 

"Max told me something about you," he said. 

"Oh yeah?" Billy considered all of the things Max could have told Will that would have mattered to him, even as he asked, "What was it?"

Will poked at his ice cream again, not scooping so much as just leaving a tiny divot in the side. "I don't know if I should tell you."

"Why's that?"

"I don't think it's the sort of thing she was supposed to share," he said. "But she only told me because she was trying to make me feel better."

Billy hummed, shifting to put his elbow against the table and resting his chin against his palm. "Did it make you feel better?"

"I don't know."

Will looked up at Billy, eyes dark with fear and shame and self-loathing.

And something in Billy went cold. 

It wasn't difficult to guess what secret Max had split without his permission and while there was a hot anger when he thought about the sort of shit that could happen if she didn't keep her mouth shut, there was mostly just an icy feeling that came with seeing the look in Will's eyes.

Because the truth was this - 

Billy didn't want Neil touching Max the way he touched Billy. 

Billy didn't want Jane to be angry at the world the way Billy was. 

Billy didn't want Will to hate himself the way that Billy did. 

There was fear pounding through Billy, thoughts of how anyone in the parlor could know his father and how anything that came from his mouth could reach his father, but there was something in him greater than fear that had him saying, "Will, what Max told you is true. I like boys the same way you do." 

"...You do?"

"Yeah." Billy leaned forward a bit, making sure he was looking Will right in the eye, and said, "And there's nothing wrong with either of us for that, okay?"

Will glanced away from Billy, looking unsure. "My dad said-"

"Yeah, my dad said too," Billy told him, interrupting before Will could parrot whatever poison his father had said. And there was a lump in his throat as he said, "But nothing either of them said matters because neither of them are right."

It wasn't like one little talk in the ice cream parlor while the girls were in the bathroom magically made things better for either of them, but that conversation helped both of them in different ways. 

Billy didn't think that his sexuality had really been a secret from Will, thought that maybe Will had picked up on him the same way he'd picked up on Will, but that must not have been the case because Will seemed to be bolstered after their conversation, like he'd only just learned that he wasn't alone in the world. 

And Billy did his best to make sure that Will didn't forget that. He mentioned boys he'd known in California off hand when things reminded him of them while he was with the kids - when Jane was trying to pick an ice cream flavor he told them about Jason Yang who always ate green tea ice cream with strawberries because it reminded him of his mother and he mentioned how it hadn't been too bad to kiss him afterwards, when Max mentioned the baseball bat that Steve carried around Billy mentioned how Peter Guzman had a signed baseball bat hanging above his bed which was always falling down on their heads, and when Will's face went a little wistful while the girls talked about their first kisses Billy told him how he'd been fifteen before he finally had the courage to kiss Tommy Parker on the swings when they were warm and loose from too much Jack Daniels. 

Each story seemed to make Will feel a little better, a little more confident. 

Billy watched as Jane and Max did their best to fold Will into their conversations, not so much forcing him to be one of the girls but letting him know that he could talk about boys with them if he wanted. They would make him take the quizzes in their magazines that told them which teen heartthrob would be the perfect boyfriend for each of them and when they were mad at their boyfriends for something they'd ask Will if he would have put up with a boyfriend treating him that way and when Billy agreed to take them to see some romantic movie they would bring Will into conversations about whether they wanted something like that. Billy knew that none of that was really the same for Will as it was for the girls, but he also knew that Will, for all of his initial embarrassment, appreciated it in ways that the girls couldn't really understand. Because the boys all knew about Will's sexuality and while they didn't disapprove, but they also didn't really bring it up. The girls were not only accepting, but actively willing to bring it up and help him grow more comfortable with it. 

Billy knew he wasn't role model material, but he did his best to make sure to put up a good example for Will. He tried his tone down the act he put on with girls. He flirted a bit, because he actually was just a little bit of a flirt, but he wasn't as aggressively sexual with it and he pretty much stopped going out with girls all together. He tried to speak up about boys he thought were attractive more often. He only did it in private, because as much as he hated it he needed Will to know that he had to be careful, but he piped in more during the kids conversations and made sure they knew that the entire cast of The Outsiders was more attractive than any of the actors they liked. He tried not to panic so much just because he was in Steve's presence. He did his best to think about other things when he was worried he'd sat too close to Steve or not to think that everyone in the room knew what was on his mind just because he'd glanced at Steve's lips while he spoke. 

And Billy wasn't sure if he could ever make himself proud of who he was, didn't think he could ever stop hearing Neil's voice in his head or stop feeling the shame his father had pounded into him, but he hoped that maybe he could make Will proud of who he was. 

_**and this is the family we made**_

Billy sat on the hood of Steve's BMW with Steve next to him, their thighs pressed tightly together and cigarettes dangling loosely from their fingers. They had the windows of the car rolled down and the stereo turned up loud enough so they could hear the music flowing out of it - _help me make the most of freedom and of pleasure, nothing ever lasts forever everybody wants to rule the world._

They were sitting together while waiting for the kids to get out of AV club. They'd spent the time since they got there shooting the shit, talking about how annoying Tommy had been during basketball practice and how they wanted to go see the new Rambo movie when it came out next month. 

He was in the middle of listening to Steve tell a story about something that had happened in his English class and trying not to focus on the way his ankle kept bumping against Steve's as he got more and more animated, when the middle school doors burst open. 

The kids came pouring out, all six of them since Jane had gotten permission to attend AV club in order to get her used to a school building. 

"Careful, shitheads!" Steve called, cutting his story off. "One of you is going to end up tripping and I'm just going to laugh while you bleed!"

"No you wouldn't," Dustin said. 

"He wouldn't," Billy agreed, taking a final drag from his cigarette before tossing it in front of him. Pushing himself up and onto his feet, he stomped on the bud. "But I would." As the kids finally drew up to them, he said, "Alright. My shitheads need to get in my car in the next thirty seconds or I'm leaving you here."

"You wouldn't leave us," Jane said with an absolute certainty. 

Will said, "Even if you did leave us, Steve would give us a ride."

"Steve doesn't have that much space," Steve said. "So you should probably listen to Billy if you want to get home today."

Billy clapped his hands together, motioning towards the camaro. "You heard him. Time to go." He knew that they were mostly just objecting because they didn't like when he rushed them, so he wasn't surprised when they moved towards the car. 

"Can I choose the music?" Max asked as she followed behind the others. 

"You can choose Michael Jackson or Bon Jovi."

"Ugggh we listened to Michael Jackson yesterday, though. And Bon Jovi on the way here. Can't we listen to something else?"

"You can choose between Michael Jackson and Bon Jovi or I'll choose."

"But I don't want to-"

"Okay, Bon Jovi it is then!"

"Billy!"

Ignoring Max's screeches, Billy gave his attention to the other two, saying, "Max has forfeited her right to the front seat, which one of you is taking it?" 

There was a grin on Billy's face and a calmness in his chest as he listened to the arguments start up. 

The rest of the school year passed in a steady pattern. 

Billy took Max to school, occasionally picking up Will if Joyce had a late night and Jonathan wasn't around for some reason, and they argued about what music to play until Billy finally agreed to tune the radio to a station that they both liked. He'd go to school once he made sure his morning charges were all inside the doors, spending his day going through his classes to get good enough grades to keep his father's hands off of him and leaning against the locker next to Steve's to talk to him in between classes. He didn't like Wheeler or Byers, not even a little bit, so while Steve had lunch with them Billy usually sat with Tommy and Carol, played into the persona he'd been cultivating since he'd transferred to Hawkins. Once basketball practice ended, Billy would drive to the middle school and sit on the hood of Steve's car smoking cigarettes while they waited for the kids to get out of AV club. 

The afternoons were spent doing things with the kids - sometimes hanging out at the Hopper cabin because Jane needed watched while Hopper was gone, while other times he was just out there to pick Jane up before taking all three of them to the movies or the mall or out for ice cream. Other times he just drove the kids somewhere so they could hang out with the others. Typically he and Steve ended up hanging out while the kids did their thing, seeing a movie they were more interested in while the kids saw one or eating nachos and playing their own games while they were at the arcade or occasionally driving out to the quarry to smoke before looping back to the mall to grab their respective groups of kids. 

He spent his nights either doing something with the entire group - Steve and all of the kids squeezed into a booth at the diner so they could all eat together before the kids had to go home - or babysitting his three at the Hopper's cabin when the man had to go somewhere. Sometimes he'd go to the parties that Tommy and Carol told him about, though those days were getting fewer as opportunities to spend the night watching movies with Steve at his house came up more often. 

Before he knew it, Billy had turned eighteen and graduated high school. 

Neil didn't put him on his ass the way he'd been expecting, so despite how desperate he was to get away Billy kept his head ducked down and stayed in his father's house. More time there meant more time to get a real job and gather some money so he could get a decent place instead of the first shit-hole he found in Hawkins. 

He missed California so much that he ached with it, he could taste the sea salt on his tongue and feel the waves lapping at his feet. But every time he thought about using the money he had saved to drive out there, to live on friends couches until he managed to save up enough for his own apartment, Max would ask for a ride to a friend's house or Hopper would call asking him to take care of Jane for the night or Will would look away from Mike Wheeler and catch Billy's eyes with a secret little smile on his face. 

Because here was the truth of the matter - 

Billy missed California, but he knew that there was no way he was going back there now. 

Not when he'd found something that made him happy in Hawkins, not when he'd found a family in three obnoxious little kids who needed him just as much as he needed them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I am honestly boggled by how much support this fic has gotten and I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone for that support! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as much as you've enjoyed others because I've sincerely enjoyed writing it!
> 
> 2) chapter title: an old nursery rhyme
> 
> 3) Billy's favorite actor from the Outsiders is definitely Patrick Swayze, but mostly because I think his heart would go boom-boom over Swayze in Dirty Dancing and that movie wasn't out yet. 
> 
> 4) Also this was not the original plan, but we're going to veer into season 3 rewrite territory in about....2 chapters? Like the one after the next one, so everyone who hasn't seen the show should know that there WILL BE SPOILERS once that starts.


	6. summer in your heart

**_the only thing that gets me through the winter_ **

"Okay," Billy said. He tied off the braid he'd just finished in Max's hair then pushed it over her shoulder. "You're all done."

"Thanks, Billy," she said. The two of them were sitting together on a plastic lounger in the Byers backyard, Billy against the back of the chair since it had been his originally while Max sat on the edge between his legs.

Joyce was hosting a summer party for all of the kids - a small graduation thing for Jonathan combined with an out of school celebration for Will's friends. Billy had been invited by Joyce while dropping Will off one day the previous week. He hadn't been completely sold on dropping by when she first invited him, but then his kids had asked if he was coming and Steve had asked and somehow he'd ended up spending a Saturday at the Byers house.

"No problem." He put his hand between her shoulder blades and pushed her. As she got to her feet, he glanced at the other kids in front of him. He'd pulled Jane's hair up before Max's, giving her a small ponytail to help keep it from falling into her eyes. He'd taken some bobby pins out of his hair and slid them into Will's just to keep his bangs from falling forward. "Alright. Your hair is all taken care of. Kick their asses or I'm not taking any of you to see The Goonies this weekend."

The kids started objecting all at once, but Billy raised his voice above them to say, "You don't have anything to complain about if you win."

There was some grumbling from Max and Will, Jane just staring at Billy in that way she always did when she knew he was bluffing, before Dustin called out for them and they all ran off to join the make-shift basketball game Steve and the others were having.

He was about to lay back down in the chair when he heard, "You want a beer?" Billy looked to his left to find Hopper standing next to him with two bottles in his hand. When Billy raised an eyebrow, Hopper said, "I'm letting it go for the older kids since it's a celebration. I'll kill all four of you if I see any of the younger ones drinking, though."

"Fair enough." Billy wasn't going to let any of his three have anything anyway - Neil would blow a gasket if Max came home smelling of beer and he wouldn't disrespect Hopper or Joyce by giving their kids alcohol when they were five feet away. "Thanks."

Hopper hummed, not saying much else.

There was silence for a couple of minutes as Billy uncapped the beer and took his first sip, the two of them just watching the game in the distance. It seemed to be Jane, Will, and Max against Dustin, Lucas, and Mike while Steve stood at the sides giving both sides tips. Billy wasn't quite sure why they were playing basketball since he knew that none of the kids were really the sporty type, Max was the only one even vaguely interested and she'd taken a turn towards skateboarding rather than softball like Neil had hoped, but he figured it must have had something to do with Steve knowing how to play.

"You know," Hopper said, his voice a quiet rumble. "You've done well with them."

Billy froze, bottle to his lips. "What?"

"You've done well with those kids, Billy," Hopper told him. Billy looked over at him, surprised and caught off guard. Hopper was still focused on the game in the distance, but there was a slant to his body that made it clear Billy had his attention. "I can't say much for Max, but Jane and Will? They needed you in their lives. You've taught Jane things that I never could have as her father, things that she needed a big brother who understood her to understand. And Will? Joyce and Jonathan love that kid to death, but they had no idea how to make him okay with himself after everything Lonnie said to him. He needed someone like him to teach him that and you've done a real great job of that."

He couldn't think of anything to say other than, "They shouldn't be looking up to me like that."

Hopper turned his head towards Billy. Meeting his eyes he said, "I think that's something that they get to decide, not you." There was a moment before he added, "For what it's worth though - Joyce and I think they made a good choice."

Hopper's words were just a little bit too much for Billy to handle, so he'd ended up scrambling away from the man after a few more moments in favor of interrupting the basketball game. He shoved his way between the kids, suggesting a four-on-four game with Billy and Steve involved. Steve had agreed, but the difference in skill level between them and the kids had four-on-four quickly turning into one-on-one with the kids cheering from the sides.

Playing basketball with Steve was a heady affair. Billy wasn't nearly as aggressive as he had been the first time they'd played together, back when Billy had been new to Hawkins and angrier than ever, but Billy was still an up-close player. It ended up with the two of them constantly pressed together, Billy pressed close enough to Steve's back to feel the curve of it and to smell the hairspray he used. It was almost a relief when Joyce finally called out that the burgers and hot dogs were ready, giving Billy an excuse to call the game off and pretend that the flush stretching from his face to his chest was just from exertion. If Steve looked similar, his tanned skin tinted with a deep red and a distracted glassy look in his eyes, then Billy was too busy searching for the shirt he'd discarded to notice.

Billy made sure to keep some space between himself and Steve once everyone was settled down to eat. He sat with Max and Jane on either side of him, Will across from him with Jonathan by his side. Nancy was next to Jonathan and Steve ended up next to her. Billy kept his attention focused on the kids around him, splitting a hot dog with Jane because she'd gotten a burger but wanted to try a hot dog as well and arguing with Max about whether or not mayonnaise was good on hamburgers and stole some of Will's potato salad since he knew that Will didn't like it enough to eat all of what his mother had given him. And if Steve was sending little glances at him, looking at the way that Billy seemed to shine when he smiled and how his curls fell into his face when he laughed, than Billy was too busy with the kids to notice.

After lunch, he flitted around the party. He sat with Will for a while when the younger boy wanted a break from running around with his friends, talking to him as Will sketched in the book that he'd gotten for his birthday earlier that year. He was growing into a fantastic artist so Billy always liked watching Will, finding it a little awe-inspiring that Will could create something so beautiful. He taught Jane how to play a couple of lawn games, teaching her that she had to throw underhand while playing cornhole if she wanted to actually get the bag in the hole and had a contest with her to see which of them could bounce a tennis ball on a racquet longer. He chased Max around the lawn when she hit him after he pressed a popsicle against her arm, both of them screaming and laughing and smiling like they were the children they were never really allowed to be in Neil's house. And he let himself stop avoiding Steve, sat with him on the porch in front of the Byers house as they smoke a couple of cigarettes with their knuckles brushing between them and laughter falling out of their lips alongside the smoke they let go.

They'd arrived early in the day, but the sky had gone dark by the time the party started breaking up.

Billy drove a half-asleep Max home with sun-kissed skin, a smile on his lips, and warmth in his chest.

_**the sun on my skin and chlorine in my nose** _

Billy peered at the three kids in front of him from behind his sunglasses. 

The group of them were standing on the concrete around Hawkins Public Pool. Billy was wearing the red shorts that made up his lifeguard uniform, his whistle already around his neck and his glasses down. The kids were lined up in front of him in their swimsuits - an orange two-piece with white flowers for Max, a red one-piece with polka dots for Jane, and black trunks with black strips up the side for Will. Max had a pair of gaudy neon orange sunglasses pushed into her red hair while Jane had a neon pink innertube that she was holding around her waist. 

He wasn't originally planning on bringing the kids into work with him, but Joyce had called shortly before he had to get ready to ask if Billy could watch Will if she picked up a shift. He'd been about to say no, genuinely feeling bad about it since he knew Joyce was struggling to make sure she could help Jonathan move and he genuinely didn't mind watching Will even if it wasn't to help his mother, when Max had walked by. And since Max had been begging Billy to let her come to the pool with him all morning, he'd ended up agreeing to watch Will as long as Joyce was okay with him going with them. 

He'd ended up picking up Jane too since it felt strange to have two of the kids without the third. And he knew that the kids had been teaching Jane how to swim. Billy was a lot more comfortable with that going on while he was on duty than any of his co-workers, even if he knew that they were just as competent as he was. 

"If you step even a toe out of line," Billy said, "I'm calling Steve to get you and you're all going home. Understood?"

Max made a sound somewhere between a huff and a groan. "You've said that like ten times in the past five minutes, Billy. Don't you have to go to work or something?"

"Yes, but some brats convinced me to bring them to work and now I have to make sure they don't drown while I'm on duty."

"Isn't it your _job_ to make sure we don't drown?"

He responded with, "Do you want me to call Steve before you've even gotten into the pool?"

Max made a face at him, but ultimately the threat was enough for her to fall quiet. 

Billy glanced over at the lifeguard tower, making sure that Heather still looked settled and not like she was about to climb down for their shift change. Then focused back on the kids, "I'm serious though, okay? I've got to worry about everyone else in this pool today. I need you three to be chill."

"We'll be good," Jane said.

"You better be." 

For the first hour or so of his shift, Billy found himself watching his kids with a bit more intensity than he watched the rest of the pool. As time rolled by without them really causing any problems though, Will gripping onto Jane's inner tube so the two of them were floating together and Max swimming around beside them as they all talked, Billy felt his shoulders start to relax. He knew that they were good kids, knew that he could trust them not to tip over Jane's innertube when she wasn't watching or hold each other under water like the other kids in the pool tended to do to their friends, but he couldn't help growing tense when they were in danger like this, even if that danger was manufactured by themselves. 

So he rolled his shoulders, unclenching his jaw and letting some of the tension seep out of him, and focused on his job. 

When he climbed down the tower a few hours later, he went to the edge of the pool to instead of disappearing inside. He gestured to the kids until they climbed out, all three of them wet from head to toe, and got them wrapped up in towels before taking them inside. 

He took them to the burger bar attached to the pool, buying them all lunch. And as they ate, he took a quick stock of them. Will and Max were both going red on their cheeks and shoulders, and he made a note to grab the sunscreen from his locker before sending the kids back in the pool. He'd seen the three of them in the shallow end a while ago which explained why Jane looked so exhausted, learning how to swim and swimming for the first time were tiring things, so he made a note to tell her to get her tube back out for a little while. 

When they were all finished, Billy gave them a couple of bucks and waved them towards the arcade machines that were set up at the far edge of the snack area. He didn't really think anything would happen to them if they hopped right back in the pool, but they'd been in there long enough that it seemed like a good idea to have them out of the water for a while longer. 

By the time he had to be back on the tower, he'd gotten food in all of them and managed to smother each of them in enough sunscreen to feel confident that they wouldn't be getting burned anymore. He left them playing their games with instructions to run by the tower and tell him they were back when they were finished. 

When the day was done, Billy clocking out as Heather went to take her final turn on the tower, Billy drove all of them out for ice cream. They talked about the day while they poked at their choices, Max talking about how she and Will had totally demolished two teenagers in chicken with chocolate syrup on the corner of her mouth and Jane chomping down on the chocolate chips from her mint ice cream while she talked about her first time swimming without help and Will asking if anyone had noticed how Jesse Patrick seemed a little more muscular than he had during the school year while blushing and poking at his strawberries. 

It was a nice, cool ending to a day spent in the hot sun. 

**_sugar and cream, you and me_ **

"Well, I don't know if this is definitively the worst outfit I've ever seen you in," Billy said, leaning against the ice cream display with a large grin on his face even as his stomach twisted itself into knots at the way Steve looked in his uniform, "but I think it's definitely in the top five."

"Fuck off," Steve said, though there was something fond and amused in his voice despite the harsh words. 

"I mean I could," Billy said. He gestured to the three kids behind him, "But I get the feeling that the tagalongs wouldn't like it if I left before they got their ice cream."

Steve glanced at the kids, sending them a smile in return for their waves, before sighing. "Ah yes. I miss my own little ducklings."

"Oh right, you've been off duty since Henderson went to camp haven't you?"

"Mmm yeah. Mike and Lucas can usually get rides from their parents. They just ask me for rides since I'm already getting Dustin."

"I can not tell you how nice it sounds to have a couple of weeks without these three."

"Lie," Jane said, cutting through the discussion. 

"It really is not," Billy said. Turning to see the three of them, he gestured them forwards. "Come set sail on Harrington's ocean of flavor." Steve made a face at him. Billy just grinned back. He felt warm and amused from their interaction, the feeling he always got when he had the opportunity to spend time like this with Steve. When they got to just...be around each other, all teasing and quiet laughter and sly grins.

Max's voice was a combination of amused and disgusted as she said, "Can we actually order or are you two going to keep doing that?" Billy glanced back at her, shooting her a look because he knew she was alluding to him flirting with Steve. She knew better than to talk about his feelings for Steve in front of the teen in question, especially given that she only knew about them because he'd told the kids to try and make Will feel more comfortable. 

"Get up here," he said, some of the warmth from talking to Steve turning into annoyance. He tried his best to swallow the panic at the idea that Steve might've known what she was talking about. He reached back, grabbing Will by the shoulder and bringing him forward. He was careful to keep his touch light as he touched him, to make sure that he was just encouraging Will to move rather than digging his fingers in or forcing him. "Will, you first since you're the only one I like right now."

"Will's always the only one you like," Max said.

Billy might've been worried about it, but Max didn't sound like she actually felt that way or that she was that upset if she did. Still Billy made a note to spend some time alone with her soon, to maybe spend a night braiding her hair and making dinner and watching a movie on the couch together. Sometimes it was difficult with Max since they were siblings, since they didn't always get the separation that Billy had from the other kids and since siblings in general came with their own unique set of annoyances. 

"I like you plenty when you aren't saying shit you know not to say," Billy told her. Will seemed to be shifting a bit nervously, but Billy moved his hand to squeeze his shoulder in assurance before pulling away. "Go ahead, Will. Max and Jane can go after you."

"What sounds good today?" Steve asked, leaning against the counter and smiling at Will.

The combination of the two of them seemed to soothe over any of the tension in his shoulders, encouraging him to know that no one was actually upset with him. 

"Uh...can I have one scoop of the banana cream?"

Billy sat with the kids while they ate their ice cream, looking at the sketches that Will had brought along to show him and listening to Jane talk about how Hopper had tried teaching her to fish the previous weekend and Max grumble about Lucas always talking about how much he missed having Dustin around. He tried to give them his full attention while they were eating, not glancing at Steve or the pretty girl he worked with who Steve was talking to. 

Once they had all finished though, the kids took off into the mall without him - telling him where they intended to go so he could track them down if he was ready to herd them back to the car before they looped back to scoops. 

He ended up leaning up against the counter, on the side of the cash register, and chatting with Steve. 

Scoops Ahoy was busy enough that Billy didn't really bother talking about anything too personal, but slow enough that they had time to talk. Billy told Steve about some of the kids who he had during the swim lessons he taught - Steve awwed when he told him about little Susan Yelch who always needed five minutes of clinging to his arm before swimming on her own and laughed when he told him how Christopher Loveland stuck to Billy's side because he was absolutely terrified of Heather. Steve told Billy about the customers that came into Scoops - making Billy laugh as he talked about Erica Sinclair and her friends demanding samples of everything in the shop when they were there and about how he played rock-paper-scissors with Robin when some stupid kid puked from eating too much ice cream. It was simple and fun, left Billy with a smile on his face and warmth in his gut and a tingle in his forearm where he and Steve pressed together while leaning on the counter next to each other. 

And Billy had been jealous of Robin when he'd been hanging out with the kids, noticing how easily she and Steve interacted and how she made Steve work. But it had taken only a few minutes of leaning against the counter, watching her and Steve interact when she had something to say to him and watching her interact with other customers, to recognize the same thing in Robin that he felt in himself and that he had realized with Will - that Robin was far more interested in finding subtle ways to look at her own gender than she was in looking at Steve. 

It had made it easier for Billy's shoulders to loosen, because god he knew he was probably going to lose Steve to a girl one day but he was hoping it wouldn't be quite so soon, and it made it easier for him to talk to her. They bantered back and forth, making fun of Steve's pretty hair and the pickup lines so lame that Billy couldn't even muster up any jealousy because they were so unlikely to actually work. 

And well, Billy loved his kids even when they were being a pain in his ass. But it was great to talk to people his own age with the ease that he found himself speaking to Steve and Robin, unbound by the restrictions that came when speaking to Heather or any of his other co-workers. 

More than even that though, Billy enjoyed anytime that he got to spend that much time with Steve. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! i hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> 2) Chapter and section title source: a jack mcbrayer quote for one section. 
> 
> 3) Friendly reminder that the next chapter veers this fic into rewrite territory. that'll probably come with a style change, but mostly I just want everyone to know for Spoiler reasons.


	7. you know monsters (but you never meant to be one)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS FOR SEASON THREE AHEAD!!

**_the fate you can't avoid_ **

"Please, Billy?" Max said. "Dustin's coming back tomorrow! And we want to spend time with him, so it's easier to see the move tonight!"

"Aren't you a little young for St. Elmo's Fire?" Billy asked.

The group of them - Billy along with Max, Jane, and Will - were walking along the edge of the pool, making their way towards the lifeguard tower. The kids had come along to work with Billy again, spending their day swimming until Billy was off-shift and could drop them off at the mall. They had plans with the rest of the kids, minus Henderson who was still at camp until the morning, to hangout and see the Day of the Dead preview.

Billy could feel the eyes of some of the poolgoers on him - he knew he was attractive and he knew just how many of the regulars came to stare at him while he was working - but he didn't pay much attention to them. On a different day he might have sent the mothers under their umbrella a grin or stretched in just the right way to show himself off to the teenagers sunbathing in the pool loungers. Today, though, his attention was focused on his kids.

"No," Jane said. Billy was proud of how far she'd come since they met, how much more she talked and interacted with people and understood what she liked, but sometimes he missed the days when Max had been the only one of them comfortable talking back to him.

He hummed a moment, thinking. He didn't really mind taking the kids to the movies when they were done with their friends. They would be at the mall anyway, so it wasn't like he had to drive them to the theater afterwards. He could just hang out with Steve and Robin at Scoops while the kids were running around. And he didn't think it was a particularly long movie, so it'd should get out early enough for him to get all the kids home before heading out to the party Heather had invited him to that morning."

"Alright fine," Billy said. "I'll take you to the movies tonight."

Once the three of them would have given a little cheer, but by now they all knew that Billy was more likely to give in than he was to say no. He wasn't quite sure when he'd become that sort of pushover, but he didn't mind nearly as much as he would have a couple of months ago. He liked spending time with the kids and they liked spending time with him. It didn't matter if he told them yes a little more frequently than he probably should have.

"You're going to buy candy too right?" Max asked.

"Sure," he agreed. "Or - you guys can meet me at Scoops once you're finished with the others and I'll buy ice cream."

The kids exchanged a look before Will turned his attention to Billy, suggesting, "Scoops and a box of candy each?"

"Scoops with whatever toppings you want," Billy countered. There was amusement warm in his stomach, because there was something amusing about negotiating with them like this. "And an extra large popcorn to share at the theater."

There was another look before Jane nodded. "Deal."

"Alright." He reached out, putting his hand on Jane's forehead and pushing lightly. "Now go swim or something, shitheads. I've got to work."

Billy spent his afternoon working, which meant he spent it mostly bored out of his mind. The residents of Hawkins weren't really all that exciting. He had yet to have anyone actually come close to drowning, so mostly he just yelled at kids running along the edges of the pool and blew the whistle at teenagers who were getting a little too rowdy.

He kept an eye on his kids, but they were always good when they were alone at the pool with him. When they came with the rest of the group - usually escorted by Steve or Mrs. Wheeler - they were a little rowdy. The entire group was all loud, screeching conversations and jumping in places they shouldn't and bushing heads underwater. But when they came with him while he was working, they always quieter and calmer. Billy appreciated it because he couldn't be working as well as keeping an eagles eye on them. That afternoon they spent most of their time floating on their backs, Jane sitting in the middle of her innertube since she still wasn't the strongest swimmer, and chatting as they splashed little bits of water at each other.

When he was done working, he dropped them off with their friends before heading to Scoops Ahoy. He spent the time that the kids were with Mike and Lucas leaning against the side counter, eating vanilla ice cream with cherries and sprinkles as he spoke to Robin and Steve. The three of them talked about the customers that came in and the horrible ones Billy had missed before showing up and Billy told them the behind-the-scenes drama that plagued the lifeguards he worked with and all of the stupid people who he'd ran into at the pool.

When the kids showed back up he treated them all to their promised ice cream, saying goodbye to the Scoops employees so he could sit with Will, Max, and Jane as they ate and listen to how their day had been.

Afterwards he took them to see St. Elmo's Fire, providing popcorn and soda like he'd agreed.

It was later than he'd been anticipating by the time he finally headed to the party, but he didn't really mind because the day had left him with a warm happy feeling in his chest.

That was probably why he didn't notice the thing in the middle of the road until it was too late to avoid hitting it.

**_inside down and upside out and you can feel it_**

Billy woke up to find his body ached in a way that it hadn't in weeks. His father hadn't touched him since his eighteenth birthday, but now Billy felt the way he did after some of the worst beatings that Neil had given him.

Keeping his eyes closed, he tried to remember what he had done to deserve this beating and what exactly Neil had done to him. It was easier to take stock after beatings like this, so he knew which lines to line tiptoe around and which parts of himself to be most careful with.

It didn't take long for him to remember what had actually happened - the thing he'd hit with his car, being dragged to the steelworks building and the monster that he'd met there, escaping to the phone booth and trying desperately to call 911 so he could get ahold of Hopper, being dragged away from there and the vertigo he'd felt before finding himself back in the Steelworks building. About shouting into the building, desperate to know what the hell was happening and what the fuck the monster wanted from him while his heart pounded in his chest. About staring into his own eyes and seeing the mouth that wasn't his move to say ' _you_ '.

He squeezed his eyes tighter shut as it came over him, terror pounding through him. He didn't know when he passed out - but he knew that the time before he had had been much more terrifying than the demodogs he had fought in the Winter. .

But then, with his eyes squeezed shut and monsters on his mind he thought about the kids - thought about Will going missing before he'd shown up in town and how everyone had thought he was dead, about Max racing down the tunnels ahead of him even while Billy could feel the heat from the fire they'd set reaching out towards them, about how he knew Jane was more involved than anyone had told him and that any danger he ran into was a threat to her.

Billy thought about the kids in danger from the monster that had dragged him here - and then he took a deep breath before opening his eyes and pushing himself up.

When he looked around the monster was gone, but it wouldn't have mattered regardless because Billy knew the kids - _his_ kids - were in danger and he couldn't stay laying on the dirty floor while that was the case.

Staying in the steelworks building wasn't an option - not just because the monster could return any minute without him knowing it was coming back, but because he needed to find everyone else and tell them about what he'd seen.

The idea of telling everyone what he'd seen went away as soon as he stepped outside and realized that he wasn't in Hawkins. It had all the markings of Hawkins - all of the junk around the steelworks building that teenagers liked to jump on when they had partied too hard at the quarry and were drunk out of their minds - but it's sky was a black tinged with reds and oranges. And there was something falling down onto Billy's head, like snow but gray and warm to the touch rather than cold.

As he ventured out into the world, pulling his tee-shirt off to wrap it around his mouth and nose when he remembered the kids insisting on doing the same when they had burned the tunnels, it only became more obvious. The trees of the forest were taller, trunks dark and leaves non-existent and looming high over Billy's head as if just waiting to snatch him up into the sky. When he ventured into the city, all of the buildings were there but they were dilapidated, roofs caving in and windows smashed out and wooden porches filled with holes. And they were all empty, wind whistling through broken windows and abandoned streets.

All of that was before he considered the monsters in the world. The demodogs he could hear scurrying around when he'd been running from the forest, the Titans that towered over Hawkin's building that looked like something out of a greek myth as they wandered, the black vines hanging off buildings that wiggled their tendrils and ate whatever wandered too close to him.

And Billy....Billy wasn't brave. He'd always been a coward. Too afraid to touch a boy until he was drunk, too afraid for anything more than kisses behind buildings, too afraid to even look once Neil found out. Too afraid of his father too fight back, so afraid of his father that he yelled and grabbed at Max, too afraid of his father that he slept in his car rather than face him when he did something wrong. He'd followed the kids into the tunnel not because he wanted to deal with demodogs and the crazy shit he'd found out that night, but because he was so afraid of what would happen if he went home without Max.

But.

But he couldn't just sit in this place doing nothing, not when Max and Will and Jane were somewhere without any knowledge of what Billy had seen and what was coming for them.

Billy Hargrove was a coward, but for his kids he would be as brave as he needed.

  
_**did you think I'd lay down and die?** _

Billy sat in the general store, hidden behind some shelves with a can of beans that he was eating out of with a plastic spoon.

He didn't know how long it had been in his world, but days had passed in this world since his arrival and Billy had made enough mistakes to have learned how to survive. It was hard to find food in the Upside Down, but the place seemed to be the destination for lost things in his world and typically he could find something under the shelves - usually cans that must have fallen and rolled under them without notice. The problem with eating in the general store, though, was that the demodogs were just as aware of it's secrets as he was and more than once he'd come in to find one of them trying to get under the shelves or been bombarded while eating himself. And so when he heard the door of the store opening, hinges squeaking and the dingy bell above the door ringing, he was immediately on guard.

He shoveled another spoonful of beans into his mouth before grabbing the piece of rebar he'd been using as a weapon, he'd pulled it off of one of the shattered buildings, and shoving himself to his feet.

He was careful as he stood, making sure he stayed low enough that his head didn't pop up over the top of the shelf.

Pressing himself against the wood, he peered around.

What he found standing in front of the door wasn't a demodog.

Rather it was another human. A tall, busty girl with thick curly brown hair gathered in a ponytail. She was wearing a familiar dark red swimsuit, a white logo and lettering printed on the front that Billy didn't need to read to know what it said.

"Heather?" he said, his voice filled with confusion. He kept his hand wrapped around the steel bar, but some of the tension in his body seeped out. Heather was the first human being he'd seen in what felt like weeks and it was difficult not to feel slightly safer with her. It was difficult not to relax in the first living thing he had seen that wasn't a monster.

She turned to look at him. He was surprised by the fear that crossed her expression, but he chalked it up to fear of the Upside Down and all the things she had probably encountered before reaching the store. He was more surprised by the steel and anger that settled into her expression after, before she launched herself as him screeching, "You sonuvabitch!"

When Heather calmed down, after Billy wrestled her and they shouted at each other until there was some sort of understanding, Billy learned that he'd only been in the place for a day in their world even though far more time had passed in the Upside Down. He learned that the clone that had spoken to him in the steelworks building was running amok, or at least he assumed that was going on since he knew that he hadn't kidnapped Heather and fed her to a monster.

It was enough to strengthen his desire to get home - because there was a monster wearing his face running around Hawkins and Billy knew that his kids wouldn't hesitate to go up to it when they thought it was him. He knew that Max would barge into his room in the morning to jump on his bed when he was sleeping to late, in part to annoy him and in part to protect him from what Neil would do if he knew how long Billy had slept. He knew that Will would walk press tightly to his side when he was uncomfortable with the world around him, because Billy had done his best to be a safe place for Will and to teach the boy that Billy would always be there to help him feel proud of himself. He knew that Hopper would call Billy to watch Jane and that he'd leave him alone with her without a real conversation because he trusted Billy enough to just let him know what was in the fridge for dinner as he rushed out of the door.

There was a monster wearing Billy's face in Hawkins and he was going to do his best to make sure he got home before that monster sunk it's claws into any of his kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello ladies and gentlemen! I'm sorry it took so long for this chapter to get out - I was on vacation and then this chapter involved a lot of re-watching to rewrite which took a while - but I hope it was worth the wait!
> 
> 2) Second section title from upside down and inside out by OK Go, third section from I will Survive by Gloria Gaynor
> 
> 3) I'm sure everyone knows this - but I don't think Billy is a coward? i just think Billy would see himself as one.


	8. those who love you refuse to lose you - part one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS FOR EPISODES 1-5 OF SEASON THREE AHEAD

Max watched the spinning bottle as it slowed before finally stopping on Billy's name.

There was a moment before Eleven said, a little tentatively, "Should we spin again?"

She pressed her lips together for a moment, considering. She didn't think it was right for the two of them to invade Billy's privacy, but also she hadn't seen her brother very much the last couple of days. He'd dropped her off at home on Saturday night after taking Max, Eleven, and Will to see St. Elmo's fire. She wasn't surprised that he wasn't home Sunday morning - he'd said he was going to a party - but then she'd come back after hanging out at the mall, intending to ask her mother for permission to sleepover with Eleven and then get a ride from her brother, only to find that he still hadn't come home.

Once that wouldn't have been strange.

Now, Billy being away for so long without letting her know so she knew how to get ahold of him and could arrange rides with Steve or Jonathan was strange.

"No, you can look," Max said. She didn't really want to invade her brother's privacy, but Neil was an asshole and her brother was an idiot and Billy had painted her nails until Max had learned to love him and she'd be named if she let his privacy matter more than him as a person. Smiling so that Eleven wouldn't think anything would wrong, Max added, "Just don't watch if he's with a girl."

Eleven looked at her for a moment, as if she knew Max was lying to her and was debating probing into her thoughts. In the end she reached shifted to put the bandanna they had around her eyes again, apparently deciding her inclination that Max was lying wasn't as important as the promise they'd made ages ago for Eleven not to probe at Will and Max without permission, saying, "Billy's never with girls anymore."

"Sometimes he is," Max said. He spent a lot of time with them and Will now and a lot of time with Steve too, but he still told her he was going to parties or left for a night sometimes.

"No," Eleven said, her voice absolute. As she tied the bandanna around her head, she said, "Billy only thinks about Steve now."

And Max couldn't help the slight pulse of fear that rushed up her spine, because Steve was a good guy but she remembered what Billy had looked like when they'd drove to Indiana from California.

He hadn't meant anything to her back then, had been her mean angry step-brother who probably deserved everything he got from his father because he was never following the rules.

Now she knew better than to think Billy had ever done anything bad enough to deserve Neil's fists.

Now he was her big brother and the idea of seeing him like that again made her hurt in her very bones. 

* * *

"El!" Mike cried out as he opened the door.

Another day Eleven might have taken the time to think about the look on his face and what it meant for his feeling for her and their newly ended relationship, but right now her mind was swimming which images of Billy with Heather - none of the laughter in his lips that she usually saw when the lifeguards spoke at the pool and a look on his face that reminded Eleven uncomfortably of the lab she had grown up in - and the images she'd seen at the Hargrove house of Heather's terrified face as she called for help.

"Is Will here?" Eleven asked. She could hear Max moving around behind her, probably trying to peer around Mike in search of the boy they needed. "We need to talk to him."

Mike's face contorted, falling and twisting with confusion. "What? You're here for Will?"

Another day Eleven might have been here for Mike, but right now there was something going on with Billy and Billy wasn't Mike's. Billy belonged to Max - with his long curly hair and his painted nails and the affection in the way he ruffled her hair. Billy belonged to Eleven - with the scars on both of their skin speaking of different hurts and the way he searched every room he was in for signs of people his father knew just like she looked for exits and the way he helped her try knew things because he knew what it was like to have them kept away. And Billy belonged to Will - with the way his eyes lingered on attractive men in the street for just a little too long and the words his father had hurled at him that echoed in his head when his fingers twitched towards Steve while they walked together and the way his heart seemed to beat three times as fast anytime Steve smiled at him.

"Yes. We need to talk to him."

As Mike turned away from her, disgruntled and unhappy, she caught sight of Lucas peeking out into the hallway.

Maybe once they talked to Will, they could ask the other boys for help figuring out what was going on with him and what was happening.

But right now this was between Max and Eleven and Will.

Because he had chose the three of them and they had chosen him right back - Max had picked him as her safe haven, Eleven had as her guide in the world, and Will as his secret-keeper and confidant.

They were Billy's and Billy was theirs.

He wouldn't let anyone hurt them and they wouldn't let anyone hurt him. 

* * *

"Does it still hurt?"

Will watched from his spot on the toilet seat as Eleven poked at her night, touching the skin where she'd been choked. He was trying not to think about the attack - about all the things Billy had shouted at Max even though he'd always tried to keep Neil from attacking her like that, about Billy's hands being used to choke Eleven when all he ever did was try to help her forget about her experiences in the lab, about being chased by Billy as they tried to run even though Billy was the person that Will always ran to.

"Only when I talk," Eleven told Max, voice strained from the experience.

"Well it's a good thing you're not Mike, then. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you'd be in constant pain."

Laughter erupted amongst the three of them.

But once it faded away, something heavy tense take it's place.

There was silence for a long moment. They could hear Mike and Lucas talking outside, but the three of them were focused on something more important.

"Was it him?" Will asked. And they all knew it was the Mindflayer they had encountered, but more important to the three of them was this question. "Was it Billy?"

Eleven's face took on a more serious look as she thought about it.

After a minute she let out a low, frustrated growl. "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Max asked.

She shook her head. "He felt off, felt _wrong_ , but I'm not sure why."

"Well what did it feel like? Was it like when I was possessed?" Will questioned.

"Yes," Eleven said. She paused for a second, thinking, before letting out another groan as she shook her head. "But also no."

"Well what does that mean?" Max was almost snapping.

Will couldn't blame her for her obvious frustration and annoyance. Eleven couldn't change what she had felt or magically understand it better, but at the same time the three of them were desperate to figure out what was going on. Eleven and Will knew the Upside Down the best out of everyone. If they couldn't figure out what was going on - if they couldn't find an explanation for what was happening to Billy other than possession - than no one would. Then Billy would be in danger, because as much as they liked their friends they knew how everyone could get when things could serious and there was no guarantee that they'd be willing to put as much effort into saving Billy as they had into saving Will.

Eleven was quiet again before speaking, slowly as if she wasn't entirely certain her description was right, "When I search for Billy or tap into his head normally, he's a bit like a storm. I can feel water, like the rain, and his anger, like lightning, and his thoughts boom, like thunder. And he felt like that when I reached for him, but it was dull. Like...Like I was sitting inside during the storm and could only barely hear or see it. And he's always...Billy always feels warm, like the storm is happening in the middle of summer or someplace really hot, but I felt freezing cold when I reached for him this time."

"Well, the cold has got to be the Mindflayer, right?" Will said.

"Yes. You felt that way too," Eleven said. "But I don't know why he feels dull."

"Will didn't feel dull when he was possessed?"

Eleven shook her head. "No. He was cold, but I could feel him just as clearly as always."

Silence lapsed between them again as they each considered what they'd learned, Max's eyebrows furrowed and Eleven's face twisted in frustration and Will looking at his hands as his stomach churned.

But before they could find the words to break it, Mike's voice grew louder outside the door and he broke through their thoughts with, "Nancy?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!  
> I know this chapter is shorter and a lot different than the previous ones, but I wanted to break the events of the first half of the season from the events of July 4th. I hope this was enjoyable regardless of the changes from the norm for this fic :)


	9. Interlude: when i'm scared and alone, it's you i want to see.

Steve leaned against the wall of the stall, keeping himself sandwiched between toilet and the stall. He groaned as he settled. Everything hurt - his stomach was still rolling, his head pounding, every limb of his body feeling heavy and aching, and the warm numbness in his face had been replaced with a sharp stabbing pain.

"The ceiling stopped spinning for me," Robin said from the stall next to him. "Is it still spinning for you?"

Fighting through the heavy, sleepy feeling in his body, Steve craned his head upwards. It took him a moment before he registered, "No." Still staring upwards, because it was easier to stare at the white tiles and black lines on the ceiling rather than find the energy to move again, he asked her, "You think we puked it all up?"

God, he hadn't had any plans for the last couple of days, but he never would have guessed this was how he'd end up spending them. He would have assumed he'd be working, maybe actually doing his job or maybe leaning against the counter to talk to Billy while the two of them shared a bowl of fudge brownie with cherries.

Staring up at the tiles, he wondered when the last time he'd even seen Billy had been. Maybe Sunday? Billy had hung out with him and Robin while the kids were at the mall. The two of them had talked about a party Billy was heading to later that night, but Steve had been working opening shifts and he'd passed on the opportunity so he could sleep early.

He couldn't really remember the last time they'd spent this much time apart before this. They didn't spend all of their time together, not by any means, but they saw each other for at least a little while most days. Sometimes they spent longer periods of time together - Billy hanging out during Steve's shifts or the two of them watching movies on Steve's couch or sitting at their quarry laughing as they smoked cigarettes on the hood of Billy's car and played their music far too loud - but other times they only saw each other for a couple of minutes - chatting briefly while Billy's kids grabbed ice cream or one of them leaning against the other's car for a few moments when they bumped into each other while taking their respective kids somewhere. And between all of that, Steve hadn't gone more than a day or two

"Maybe. Ask me something." Without missing a beat, Robin put on a terrible Russian accent, "Interrogate me."

"Okay. Interrogate you. Sure," Steve said, amusement in his voice. His body was starting to feel a little less painful, leaning more towards aching than stabbing as his limbs grew less heavy and his brain less foggy, but he was still glad he was wedged into the corner. "Um...when was the last time you uh... peed your pants?"

"Today."

"What?"

"When the Russian doctor took out the bonesaw."

"Oh, my god."

"It was a just a little bit though."

"Yeah, it's definitely still in her system."

Robin stared laughing, and Steve's lips curled into a smile even as he groaned.

As much time as he'd spent with Robin since starting at Scoops, this was the first time that he had ever really paid attention to her. Sure, they talked and joked and teased each other but part of that had always been that they were just trying to get through the hours they were stuck together. It was a bit different when Billy came in - the dynamic of the three of them together shifting closer to friendship - but this was the first time he really felt close and connected to Robin while they were alone.

He liked it.

As much as Steve loved the kids, he'd been a little lonely and off-balance since everything with Nancy had happened. Tommy and Carol were shitty human beings, but they had genuinely been his friends. Realizing how terrible they were and dropping them had seemed good when he'd done it, but once Nancy had dumped him for Jonathan Steve had been girlfriend-less and just plain friendless.

Between the last few weeks with Billy and the last few days with Robin, though, Steve was starting to shake off the loneliness that he seemed to have sunk into his very bones.

"Oh...All right, my turn."

Realizing they were still playing their game, Steve agreed, "Okay. Hit me."

"Have you...ever been in love?"

It wasn't hard question to answer, so Steve didn't hesitate. "Yep. Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year." He wasn't sure when, but at some point Nancy had become a distant almost unnoticeable ache. It made it easy to feign shooting himself in the heart, mimicking a gunshot as he did so.

"Oh my god," Robin groaned. "She's such a priss."

"Hm." Thinking about everything that had happened, he said, "Turns out, not really."

"Are you still in love with Nancy?"

Steve had had enough time to grapple with his feelings and thoughts over the last couple of days to answer confidently, "No."

"Why not?"

Steve closed his eyes for just a second - pictured Billy with his soft blonde curls framing his bright blue eyes, about the curve of pink lips in a large smile and the rumble of Billy's laughter, about muscular legs thrown over his lap and knowing that Billy was only able to relax this much because he was with Steve.

And Steve thought about how Billy understood Steve's connection with the kids, how he teased Steve for certain things but never about how much he cared for Dustin. And Steve thought about how he could park the BMW at the quarry next to the camaro, smoking with Billy while his mood shifted between wildly happy as they belted out Bon Jovi and the soft comfort of simply sitting with the night breeze in their hair while the tips of their fingers brushed on the hood. And Steve thought about Billy with lips sticky from ice cream as he sat at Scoops Ahoy's counter and kept Steve company for hours just because.

"I think it's because I found someone who's a little bit better for me." He laughed a little bit, thinking about the weeks right after Billy's transfer and before Billy had found out about the Upside Down. "It's crazy." There was a moment before he said, chest filled with his first acknowledgement of this thing between him and Billy that he'd been ignoring because it was easier not to think about it than to confront the consequences of Billy filling the space that Nancy had left in his heart, "Ever since Dustin got home he's been saying, 'You gotta find your Suzie. You gotta find you Suzie.'"

Before he could go on, Robin interrupted, "Wait, who's Suzie?"

"It's some girl from camp, I guess his girlfriend. To be honest with you, I'm not 100 percent sure she'd even real." He reached up, pushing his hair away from his face and trying to focus back on what he'd been saying, "But that's not--that's not really the point. The point is that Dustin has been talking about this entire thing because he wants me to have someone who makes me feel as good and as happy as he is with Suzie. And I already found that person. I'd found them before he even left for camp. I was just too afraid to do anything about it."

There was a moment before Robin said, "And now? Are you scared now?"

"Yeah," Steve said. He looked at the door in front of him, thinking about Russian Scientists and torture. He stared ahead of him, thinking about the curl of Billy's smile and the way his eyes lit up. "But I also think we've been through a fucking lot these last couple of days and I've spent half of it thinking about how much I want to see him, to share a cigarette and a bottle of liquor and listen to some music while I try to explain all of this shit to him because he's a rock for me and he makes it easier to deal with these things. And if I can't find a way to tell him how I feel about him now, when all I really want is to be around him, than I'm probably not ever going to."

Steve hadn't even realized which pronouns he'd used until Robin said, voice sounding thick and emotional, "Hey Steve...Do you remember Tammy Thompson from high school?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I know it's just one scene, but it was one I really wanted to write and get into this story even though I want this story to focus more on Billy & the kids. It's a little selfish, but I hope it's enjoyable :)


	10. those who love you refuse to lose you - part two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILERS THROUGH EPISODE 7!

Eleven sat on the floor, Max and Will on either side of her while the rest of the group sat on couches and armchairs around them. Max's hand was wrapped in Eleven's, small soft fingers tangled together. Will wasn't holding her hand, but he was seated close enough for their thighs to be pressed together.

She took a deep breath, squeezing Max's hand tighter and feeling the warmth of Will's thigh against his.

Then she concentrated not on Billy's physical body the way she might have if she didn't know him, but on the bonds that bound them all together. She concentrated on the feelings Billy made them feel, on the things that made up who Billy really was. She concentrated on the happiness that settled in their guts with him and the ache of a face that's been stretched in a smile for too long, on the feeling of knowing there was someone who really understood your struggles and was trying their hardest to find a way to support and help you the, on the steady protection of Billy standing next to them with his shoulders squared and the warm safety of Billy's mere existence in their lives.

She concentrated not just on what Billy meant to them, but all of the pieces of him that only they knew.

And then she was -

_The sky above her was a mixture of grays, a gray sky filled with gray clouds, and an eerie chemical red. Something fell from the sky above, dusting her hair and brushing against her cheeks._

_The buildings around her were familiar - the general store where Will's mother worked and where Billy always took them to buy candy bars when they'd been less annoying than usual, the car wash that Billy took the camaro to before the three of them started offering to do it in exchange for extra ice cream toppings, the bakery that Billy sometimes bought croissants or sandwiches from when he picked them up in the mornings - but they were run down and rotting. Windows were busted out, roofs dipping inwards, siding patchy and letting light stream inside._

_And across the street from where she stood was Billy._

_He was walking down the sidewalk, turned away from her as he talked to Heather from the pool. He was wearing the black leather jacket that she knew he loved, sleeves smeared with a mixture of blood and dirt that was noticeable despite the color and torn in places so she could see his skin peeking through the cloth. There was a bandanna around his head, keeping back curls that were ratty and darker looking than Eleven had ever seen them. There was a baseball bat with black goo dripping from it slung over his shoulders. His face was set in harsh lines - none of the sunshine smiles or arrogant smirks that she was so accustomed to._

_She opened her mouth to call his name, words forming in her mouth_ -

  
"Billy!" she exclaimed. She couldn't see anything with the blindfold over her eyes, but she could feel blood dripping from her nose down towards her lips. She squeezed the hands grasped onto her own, turning her head each way as if she could see Max and Will just because she knew they were. "Billy!"

She reached out for him again, ignoring the pain pulsing through her.

Panicked and desperate, she reached for Billy - not thinking of anything except Billy and seeing him - and then she was -

_Looking around a house that she knows belongs to the Hargrove's, that she recognized from sleepovers with Max where they spent the night on either side of Billy as they stuffed their faces with the popcorn he made them and the morning arguing about waffles versus pancakes versus omelets._

_She walks through the familiar rooms, thinking of all of the good times in this place that seems so cold now._

* * *

Eleven had both of her hands out, chest straining as she struggled to breath while letting her power course through her.

Max watched her, feeling frozen and terrified.

Max watched her, thinking of how Eleven had been the first person that Max had ever had a sleep over with - who she had ever been that close with. She thought of afternoons driving through Hawkins with Billy, the stereo blasting some song and Max leaning into Eleven's side in the backseat as she tried to coax her into signing along. She thought of nights spent curled together under the comforter of Max's bed, a flashlight between them as they gossiped about their friends and talked about boys and laughed until Billy poked his head into the door to tell them to shut up and go to sleep before they woke Neil or Max's mother up. She thought of mornings sitting in a diner booth, her shoulder against Eleven's as she tried to explain everything on the menu to her so she'd know what to try and trying to convince Billy to let them drink some of his coffee.

Max watched her, and something like fire lit within her chest and unthawed her frozen limbs.

Because Max Mayfield might be Susan Hargrove's daughter, but she has always been her brother's protégé. Before that night at the Byer's cabin, Max had learned cruelty and anger from her brother. She had learned how to meet him shout for shout, how to bare her teeth at his insults, how to twist from his harsh grip and jam her fingers into his ribs until he screeched. Since they had gotten close Max had learned this - how to really listen to someone that needed you, how to make someone know how much they meant to you, how to protect what mattered because it meant the world.

Since they had gotten close Max had learned this - that some things were worth changing for, and some of those things were worth being just as cruel as you'd always been so that you could keep them safe.

Max Mayfield had never shot a gun before, but when Nancy Wheeler stood there with a shotgun in her hand just watching as one of Max's best friends - one of Max's _siblings_ \- struggled to fight for all of them, she did not hesitate to reach out and snatch it from her hands and take the shot herself.

In another world, Eleven will end up caught by a monster that leaves a pulsing parasite in her leg.

In this world, Max Mayfield sets her feet, squares her shoulders, and brings forward every lesson her brother has ever taught her.

In this world, Max Mayfield unloads an entire clip into the third tentacle before the Mindflayer can touch her friend. 

* * *

"You can show us the way?"

"Don't worry, you can do all of the fighting and the dangerous hero shit, and we'll just be your...navigators."

"No." The word came from Hopper, amused and exhausted all at once, but it also came from Will, much more firm and stern.

The entire group, everyone gathered at the mall, turned to look at Will as he stood up from where he'd sat on the fountain.

There was something terrifying about all of these people staring at him, but Will remembered Billy; remembered bruises on Billy's jaw that matched the ones that Jonathan used to carry and how Billy never dropped his chin to hide them, remembered a mouth set in apathy and blue eyes ablaze as Billy met a gaze without flinching, remembered a murmured conversation about how _'People are always going to stare at who you are, Will. So you might as well be who you are and make it clear that staring is all they're allowed to do.'_

And these people were important to him, but Billy had taught Will not to shy away from who he was or what he wanted for anyone, to protect who he was and what mattered to him, to stand up for himself and not back down for the important things even if he was going against people who were family.

"We can't close the gate," Will said. "Not yet."

There was a moment were no one said anything, Hopper and his mother looking at each other, than his mother opened her mouth, saying, "Will-"

"We _can't_ close the gate yet," Will said. He didn't know what his mother had been about to say, but Will couldn't back down on this. He had always done his best to be good for his mother, to listen and follow the rules and not make things any more difficult for her or Jonathan, but he could not do what she wanted now. Not when the cost was what it was. "Billy's in the Upside Down. We can't close it until we get him out."

There was another silence as everyone absorbed that.

And maybe in a different world Billy was the villain of their stories - maybe he was just a punk kid that Hopper gave drunk driving tickets too often, maybe he was just the asshole that trashed Joyce Byers' house even though she couldn't afford to replace all he broke, maybe he was the psycho who had almost run the kids over for no reason, maybe he was the boy who had split Steve's face open without hesitation.

In this world - Billy was the boy who taught Eleven how to interact with the world in a way that Hopper had never been able to because there was only so much a father could do, Billy was the boy who got Joyce Byers' shy son to open up and start standing a little straighter because he was a bit more proud of himself, Billy was the boy who hauled their friends around so they could hang out even given the complications with Max's father and Eleven's history, Billy was the boy who had pieced what Nancy had broken back together with a sunshine smile and rumbling laughter.

Regardless of what Billy was too all the other people in the room - Will wouldn't let them decide he wasn't worth saving.

And neither would Max or Eleven, who stood up and went to his side to support him.

They would not let any plan happen that didn't allow them to save Billy from the Upside Down, that didn't allow Max to feel her brother's hand ruffling her hair when she'd done a good job or Eleven to feel Billy's shoulder against hers when she started feeling anxious or Will to feel Billy's hand squeezing his shoulder in support.

Billy had done something for all of their friends and family, but at the end of the day they were Billy's and Billy's was theirs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It's another short one, but I like these shorter chapters where each kid kids their voice. The next one will (PROBABLY) be a longer one again :)


	11. ties that bind

**_making of a man_ **

She felt more afraid then she ever had with the thing roaring over her and sparks falling around her and the Mind Flayer's creature wearing Billy's face, staring down at her with black cracks in his face and violence in his eyes. There were none of the barely-there smiles he gave her when she was hesitated to try something new or the happiness that lit his eyes when the three of them were being particularly absurd and he was holding laughter back. It's hands gripped her, nothing like the times when he squeezed her shoulder quickly to give her courage or hugged her in that barely-there way that he did because he found them hard. It's hair was dirty and tangled and gross. There was no trace of the boy who took such loving care of his appearance that he knew how to help Max and Jane, that they could sit on the floor between his spread knees while he ran a brush through their hair before weaving it together with careful, nimble fingers.   
  
In the facility there was Papa and the scientist. She had known they would hurt her, known to be afraid of them. And the creatures from the Upside Down were monsters, things she had to fight to keep from being hurt or killed by. She knew that, always knew that. 

But this was - 

This was Billy's face staring down at her and Billy's hands hurting her and Billy's body hovering over her. 

This was new and this was terrifying, horrifying, frightening in ways that nothing had ever been because she _loved_ him and he was hurting her and -

"El!" 

The shouts came at once, barely audible above the crash-boom of the fireworks and the creature's roar and the way all of the noise made her mind go blank. 

But she heard them nonetheless. 

Will and Max calling for her, voices faint but pulling at something deep in her chest. 

_She was standing in the doorway, reciting the rules to Jim while Max and her brother stood behind him. Embarrassment rolled in her gut as he made her promise not to be alone with Mike, wondering what her friend would think of her. And when she turned around, Max's brother's smile was amused but not mean._

  
_She was in Max's bedroom, still feeling uncomfortable and unsure of herself in this new space. She had never had a sleepover before, but already she was having fun with Max and she really didn't want to mess this up at all. And before she could stop her, Max was darting down the hallway and asking her brother if he'd do their hair and nails._

_And then he was watching her, watching her, watching her and she couldn't help looking at him and -_

_Oh. He was like her, wasn't he? They were the same._

_"You do my hair," she told him. "I will bandage your bloody knees."_

  
_She was standing in a movie theater and Billy told them they could each pick our a soda and a box of candy, but there was so many different kinds and she didn't know what to choose because she'd never tried any of these and she had no idea what to pick because she didn't know what they were or what she liked._

_And when she told Billy this, he said - "Alright, Max. You win - we're buying out the entire snack counter. We'll get a box of every candy here and we'll split them between the three of us."_

  
_She was in the cabin's kitchen, flour dusting the counter and her cheeks and freckling Max's red hair. And Billy had taken the mixing bowl away from them, telling them they were terrible but he was laughing while he said it and she knew she hadn't done anything wrong because Billy always made sure she knew._

_Billy had managed to tune the radio to something newer than what Jim used it to play, something Max and Billy were singing along to. And she didn't know the words, but she joined with them because they had never made fun of her when she didn't know the words to something._

And there was so, so many other things and - 

She looked up at the creature in front of her, tearing gathering in her eyes and throat hoarse and - "You aren't him."

She reached out, fighting to put her hands on the chest of the creature in front of her as she screamed, "I want him back!"

_**did you think i'd lay down and die: part ii** _

Billy stood in the middle of the diner, head tipped up towards the ceiling even though his eyes were closed. 

Around him the restaurant was dingy and dirty, bar stools tipped over and windows shattered to holes and half of the roof missing, but behind his eyes it was something completely different. 

Behind his closed eyes, he sat at the bar with his kids on his left. Max sat directly next to him, because the two of them always sat together at the diner so that they could split a large order of cheese fries. Jane was sitting next to Max in his head with Will at the end. The kids were talking about that science teacher that the group hated, Max and Will telling Jane stories and preparing her for how awful it would be once she joined them in high school. Billy sat with his chin resting on his hand, listening to them with amusement in his gut because he'd had that same teacher and trying to decide when he was finally going to give his kids the tips on dealing with her that he'd gathered during his time at Hawkins High. 

"B, did you find anything?"

He took a deep breath, letting himself relish in the image for just one more moment as he remembered Max's flying hands and Will's smile smile and Jane's curious eyes, before letting them open. 

Billy turned to look at Heather, standing outside of the diner door in a too small tee-shirt that they'd found in one of the houses the'd raided and jeans that were held up with a belt made of rope. There was a dufflebag slung over her shoulder, filled with food they'd found in other places around town. 

When it was just the two of them they'd been able to stock up on food pretty easily, but now that there were so many other people stuck in the upside down with them they had to make trips out more often. And for all that several members of the group were good at foraging and finding food around the town, Billy still preferred to go with Heather. 

He'd spent several weeks here along, and then what had been months in this world alone with Heather. 

His life had been put in her hands and while they had been co-workers before, now he trusted her with his life without condition or hesitation. He'd had a lot of friends throughout his lives, some that actually liked him and some which he knew only liked him because he made a point of being number one at every school he'd been at, but he didn't think he'd ever had one as real or true or long-lasting as what he and Heather had developed. 

"I haven't made it to the kitchen yet," Billy told her. "Dining room is clear, though."

Heather opened her mouth to say something, probably to offer to hop through the window to guard the dining area while he was searching for food, but before she could get the words out, there was a sound somewhere behind him and Billy turned to see - 

"Hopper?"

_**four leaf clovers are lucky** _ **_things_ **

Eleven, Will, and Max sat with their heads pushed together, temples and foreheads pressed together with arms wrapped around each other in a tangled mess. 

"I don't know how we get him back now," Eleven said. Wanting him back, desperately wanting that thing with Billy's face to get away from her and desperately wanting to get the real him back, had given her the ability to summon the power she needed to end all of this. But now that it was just them curled up together and a body that looked like Billy's dead a few feet away from them and Eleven didn't know how they were going to get to the Upside Down to get him back. 

"We'll figure it out," Max said. And Eleven could hear all of the pain she was holding back, could see how carefully Max was avoiding looking at the corpse of the thing wearing her brother's face. She didn't need her powers to know that it was too much for Max, that seeing it or looking at it for too long would break something within her that even getting Billy back wouldn't fix. 

Will didn't say anything, but he buried himself just a little further into her and tightened his arms around them. It told Eleven everything she needed know because she knew Will just like she knew Max, told her that he was terrified they weren't getting Billy back because he didn't have a clue how to do it either but he'd throw everything into getting him back just like they would. 

Eleven didn't know how long the three of them had been sitting there together, vaguely aware of the rest of the group surrounding them but focused on each and the grief they shared, before she heard Steve's take in a sharp breath. 

Something grew in Eleven's chest, something terrified and hopeful and so many other things. 

"I can't-" Max said, choking on her words. And Eleven knew what she meant because she felt the same way, felt like if she looked and Steve wasn't seeing what she hoped he was then she didn't want to - to she couldn't....

But Eleven knew what the others didn't know, Will was the one connected to Billy the most this way but Eleven had felt Billy's heart in ways that the others couldn't and she knew Steve's almost as well because she couldn't help poking for Billy's sake. 

But it was so hard to bring herself to leave this huddle, to look up knowing that it could be disappointment awaiting her. 

"Billy," Steve said, voice carrying all of the things that Eleven had felt stamped on his heart. 

There was a beat and then, "Harrington, where the fuck are my kids?"

At once the three of them shifted, moving to look up just as the ring of friends-family around them separated and -

"Billy!" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi everyone! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter :)
> 
> 2) I know this might not be the ending everyone was hoping for, that people might have been hoping for some more of this fics characteristic happiness and fluff and domesticity before the end, but I've lost some of my passion for this fic and since I've been having a hard time getting updates out on my other fics I wanted to try and wrap this one up in a way that I was satisfied with even if I wish I had more to give it.


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